Web Site Policy
Accurate health information on the Internet is vital, but sometimes difficult to identify. NHS Direct Online Information Partners are independent organisations who try hard to provide the best and most accurate information possible. We are an Associate Information Partner of NHS Direct Online. Information Partners work to common standards in the production of information, making sure that their websites are designed to be used by everyone – not just those with the latest technology. Information about the programme can be found at the NHS Direct website.
We make every effort to ensure that this website reflects up-to-date, objective and accurate facts about prostate cancer. It is our hope that these will complement your medical advice and help you to make any decisions that you may face. The information provided on this website is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that may exist between you and your doctor.
Accessibility
We try to ensure that all our web pages conform to the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). This can be found at www.w3c.org/WAI.
Use of Content
We are happy for other organisations to link to our website. However, we do not give blanket permission for our information to be used elsewhere. We strive to keep our material up to date. Unregulated, unacknowledged copying of our information will lead to out of date versions being in circulation, and out of our control. If you find our material is a useful service, please link to it directly. This ensures that it remains relevant and up to date. Contact Jocelyne James if you have a specific query about information material.
We are a UK based charity and our materials are relevant only to the UK. We do not produce information about the situation in other countries. If you are not going to be treated in the UK, and choose to download our information, we are not responsible for any differences of emphasis you discover between the UK situation and that in your country of treatment.
We regret that the personal email enquiry service, available through the website and which connects you to the nurses on our Helpline, is only appropriate for users who have a UK related query – which, generally speaking, means UK residents. The nurses who answer emails also run our telephone helpline, which is our priority information service. We do not currently have the resources to expand the email system to everyone who might like to use it. Anyone is welcome to use all of the rest of the website and download anything. CancerHelp UK have a list of overseas cancer organisations which you may find helpful.
Anything that you read on the News pages will be news items, often produced by an agency. They are not recommendations by us that you should search out any treatment mentioned, or take any other action based on news reports of research results.
This website links to other websites. Visitors expect this, and by convention this is regarded as a useful and essential feature of any information website. It does not however, represent any kind of recommendation or endorsement by us of the accuracy of the content of external websites. We provide links that we hope are of interest and use. It is up to you to decide which links to follow. We are not responsible for the detail of what you find there.
We provide a message board on this website. In using this, we expect you to show respect towards all others, including those with whom you disagree. Healthy debate is fine. Personal abuse or any other form of offensive or threatening conduct is not. We will not tolerate it whether directed against other users of the website, or towards our staff.
Messages on the message boards are not our responsibility. Whilst we strive to ensure that any offensive material is removed from the boards, we do not censor ideas and opinions including those with which we disagree. If you disagree with anything you see in the message boards, we encourage you to reply to the message yourself.
The designers of this website will provide information in the clearest possible manner and provide contact addresses for visitors who seek further information or support. The Website Editor displays their E-mail address clearly throughout the website.
Creation of Content
We strive to provide an evidence based information service. This means that we adhere to broadly scientific principles of appraisal. We do not make recommendations about any particular course of action but can guide you through the issues. We do not guide you to one treatment over another where there is no strong evidence to back this up. Nor do we recommend specialists to whom you could go for treatment, as no publicly available data exists to generate the evidence for such recommendations.
Confidentiality
We have a policy of complete confidentiality. Confidentiality of data relating to individual men with prostate cancer or any other visitors is respected. We do not share any personal details you may enter on any part of the web site with any third party.
To help us in developing our website to meet your needs, we can count users on the website. This means we can identify popular pages and how long users spend on the website. This does not enable us to identify you personally or track you once you have left our website.
We use cookies in our website. A cookie is a small piece of information which a web server can store temporarily or for a specified length of time on your web browser. We only use these to record your display preferences, and if you choose, to enable faster access to the message boards. These cookies do not enable us to track you around our website or anyone else’s. For more details about cookies visit www.cookiecentral.com
Funding and Sponsorship
We are almost exclusively funded by contributions from individuals, companies and charitable trusts and foundations. At present we have a small Government grant which supports one post. Where we receive sponsorship for any of our information this is made plain and is gratefully acknowledged.
We have full editorial independence. The content of our information is not influenced by sponsors. Any attempt to do so will be firmly rebuffed, even at risk of losing the sponsorship.
Advertising Policy
We do not actively seek advertising for the website but any requests made will be assessed on an individual basis. Advertising and other promotional material that may appear will be presented so that it is quite clearly an advertisement.
We will not give a favourable response to any company or organisation seeking to sell treatments or services directly to men with prostate cancer which imply, suggest or claim that they can cure it.
Queries regarding this policy should be sent to web@prostate-cancer.org.uk.