Terms of use

Website Terms of Use

This page, together with the Privacy Policy, any other documents referred or linked to in this page, (together, the ‘Terms of Use’) sets out the terms and conditions on which you may make use of our website (nhslothiancharity.org) (‘our site’).

Please read these Terms of Use carefully before you start to use our site. By using our site, you indicate that you accept these Terms of Use and that you agree to abide by them. If you do not agree to these Terms of Use, you must refrain from using our site.

1. Information about us

Our site is operated by NHS Lothian Charity (‘we’/ ‘us’/ ‘our’).

2. Accessing our site

2.1 Access to our site is permitted on a temporary basis, and we reserve the right to withdraw or amend the service we provide on our site without notice. We will not be liable if for any reason our site is unavailable at any time or for any period.

2.2 From time to time, we may restrict access to some parts of our site, or our entire site, to users.

2.3 If you choose, or you are provided with, a user identification code, password or any other piece of information as part of our security procedures, you must treat such information as confidential, and you must not disclose it to any third party.

2.4 We have the right to disable any user identification code or password, whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time, if, in our opinion, you have failed to comply with any of the provisions of these terms of use.

2.5 You are responsible for making all arrangements necessary for you to have access to our site.

2.6 You are also responsible for ensuring that all persons who access our site through your internet connection are aware of these terms, and that they comply with them.

3. Intellectual property rights

3.1 We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our site, and in the material published on it. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.

3.2 You may:

(a) view and display the contents of our site using your internet browser;

(b) download extracts of the contents of our site to your computer solely for your own personal use and not for any commercial or business purposes whatsoever. You must ensure that if you download any extracts, you also download these Terms of Use; and

(c) print off a single copy of a page or extract of our site solely for your own personal use and not for any commercial or business purposes whatsoever. You must ensure that any printed materials include an acknowledgement of our intellectual property rights in that content.

3.3 You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text.

3.4 Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of material on our site must always be acknowledged.

3.5 You must not use any part of the materials on our site for commercial purposes without obtaining a licence to do so from us or our licensors.

3.6 If you print off, copy or download any part of our site in breach of these terms of use, your right to use our site will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made.

3.7 The names and logos identifying our site and/or us and our products and services and the products and services of any third parties are either (a) proprietary marks of NHS Lothian Charity or (b) marks that NHS Lothian Charity is licensed to use, and nothing in these Terms of Use shall confer on you any licence or ownership of such marks or of any other intellectual property right.

4. Reliance on information

Commentary and other materials posted or featured on our site are not intended to amount to advice on which reliance should be placed. We therefore disclaim all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on such materials by any visitor to our site, or by anyone who may be informed of any of its contents.

5. Our site changes regularly

We aim to update our site regularly and may change the content at any time. If the need arises, we may suspend access to our site, or close it indefinitely. Any of the material on our site may be out of date at any given time, and we are under no obligation to update such material.

6. Our liability

6.1 The material displayed on our site is provided without any guarantees, conditions or warranties as to its accuracy. To the extent permitted by law, we and third parties connected to us hereby expressly exclude:

(a) all conditions, warranties and other terms which might otherwise be implied by statute, common law or the law of equity;

(b) any liability for any direct, indirect or consequential loss or damage incurred by any user in connection with our site or in connection with the use, inability to use, or results of the use of our site, any websites linked to or from it and any materials posted on it, including, without limitation any liability for:

loss of income or revenue;
loss of business;
loss of profits or contracts;
loss of anticipated savings;
loss of data;
loss of goodwill;
wasted management or office time; and/or
for any other loss or damage of any kind, however arising and whether caused by tort (including negligence), breach of contract or otherwise, even if foreseeable.

6.2 Paragraph 6.1 does not affect our liability for death or personal injury arising from our negligence, nor our liability for fraudulent misrepresentation or misrepresentation as to a fundamental matter, nor any other liability which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.

7. Information about you and your visits to our site

We process information about you in accordance with our Privacy Policy. By using our site, you consent to such processing and you warrant that all data provided by you is accurate.

8. Transactions concluded through our site

8.1 This Site may link to other sites owned and operated by third parties to conclude transactions. These sites are not maintained by NHS Lothian Charity. NHS Lothian Charity has no control over these linked sites, all of which have separate terms of service, privacy and data collection practices and legal policies independent of NHS Lothian Charity. NHS Lothian Charity is not responsible for any linked sites. Accessing, using or concluding transactions through these third party sites is entirely at your own risk. NHS Lothian Charity will not be responsible for devices used to conclude transactions through our site.

8.2 NHS Lothian Charity does not guarantee that the use of this website will be compatible with all hardware and software which may be used by visitors to this site.

8.3 Payment transactions

All payments are debited to NHS Lothian Charity. This may take up to 7 days to update your payment in NHS Lothian Charity’s records.
Payments are not collected by NHS Lothian Charity directly but by third party service providers (Stripe and Access PaySuite). You are legally bound by their terms of service when making a payment.
NHS Lothian Charity cannot accept liability if payment is refused or declined by your credit/debit card supplier or account provider for any reason.

8.4 By using our online payment facility to make a donation or set up a direct debit, you certify that:

You are 18 years of age or over.
You have the appropriate authority to accept these Terms of Use.
You are able to and will meet your obligations in relation to these Terms and the terms set out by the payment service provider.
The payment card or bank account used in connection with the payment facility is issued in your name or you are authorised to use it.
You will pay the card issuer or account provider any charges incurred in its use.
The information supplied by you is true and correct.

8.5 Security of transactions

NHS Lothian Charity at no time collects or stores any card or bank account details.
The security of such information transmitted via the Internet, however, cannot be guaranteed. As such any data transferred is at your own risk.
NHS Lothian Charity shall not be liable for any failure by the person making payment to properly protect data from being seen on their screen by other persons or otherwise obtained by such persons, during the online payment process or in respect of any omission to provide accurate information in the course of the online payment process.
Accessing or concluding transactions through these third party sites is entirely at your own risk.

8.7 Confirmation

If successful, you will receive a confirmation notice of your completed payment.
If unsuccessful, you will be advised that your payment has failed. NHS Lothian Charity will not be advised why a payment has failed. You should therefore contact your credit card or account provider for details.

8.8 Refund policy

In common with all registered charities, NHS Lothian Charity is constrained by charity law, which means that we are only able to refund a donation in certain prescribed circumstances.
If you believe that a donation you have made should be refunded, please contact us within 14 days.
We truly appreciate your donations and support and recognise that there may be an occasion when you need to speak to one of our team to discuss your donation. Please email us at [email protected] or call us on 0131 465 5850.

9. Uploading material to our site 

9.1 Any material you upload to our site will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary, and we have the right to use, copy, distribute and disclose to third parties any such material for any purpose. We also have the right to disclose your identity to any third party who is claiming that any material posted or uploaded by you to our site constitutes a violation of their intellectual property rights, or of their right to privacy.

9.2 We will not be responsible, or liable to any third party, for the content or accuracy of any materials posted by you or any other user of our site.

10. Viruses, hacking and other offences

10.1 You must not misuse our site by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our site, the server on which our site is stored or any server, computer or database connected to our site. You must not attack our site via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack.

10.2 By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use our site will cease immediately.

10.3 We will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a distributed denial-of-service attack, viruses or other technologically harmful material that may infect your computer equipment, computer programs, data or other proprietary material due to your use of our site or to your downloading of any material posted on it, or on any website linked to it.

11. Linking to our site

11.1 You may link to our website, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it, but you must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.

11.2 You must not establish a link from any website that is not owned by you.

11.3 If you wish to make any use of material on our site other than that set out above, please address your request to [email protected].

12. Links from our site

Where our site contains links to other sites and resources provided by third parties, these links are provided for your information only. We have no control over the contents of those sites or resources, and accept no responsibility for them or for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them.

13. Jurisdiction and applicable law

13.1 The Scottish courts will have non-exclusive jurisdiction over any claim arising from, or related to, a visit to our site although we retain the right to bring proceedings against you for breach of these conditions in your country of residence or any other relevant country.

13.2 These terms of use and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them or their subject matter or formation (including non-contractual disputes or claims) shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Scotland.

14. Termination

We reserve the right to refuse access to our site to any user at our sole discretion.

15. Severance

If any provision of the Terms of Use is judged to be illegal or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, the remainder of the provisions of the Terms shall continue in full force and effect.

16. Variations

We may revise these terms of use at any time by amending this page. Please ensure you are aware of the current Terms. You are expected to check this page from time to time to take notice of any changes we made, as they are binding on you. Some of the provisions contained in these terms of use may also be superseded by provisions or notices published elsewhere on our site.

17. Your concerns

Should you require any further details of if you have any concerns about material which appears on our site, please contact [email protected].

Thank you for visiting our site.

Updated June 2023