Complaints & IP Notices

1. Designated Contact

Our designated contact for receipt of intellectual property complaints is reachable by email at info@medicalcentreuk.org. Please use the subject line Copyright notice for takedown requests, Copyright counter-notice for counter-notifications, Trade mark concern for trade mark complaints, and Defamation concern for defamation complaints. We process all notices submitted in good faith that include the recommended elements set out below.

2. Filing a Copyright Notice

If you believe content on medicalcentreuk.org/ infringes a copyright you own or are authorised to enforce, send a written notice to the designated contact. The notice should be sent in plain text or PDF.

3. Recommended Elements of a Notice

To enable us to act quickly, we ask that notices include the elements that broadly correspond to DMCA § 512(c)(3), which work well for UK-CDPA notices too:

1. Signature of the copyright owner, or a person authorised to act on the owner’s behalf (electronic signature is acceptable).
2. Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed — a specific work, or, if multiple works at the site are covered, a representative list.
3. Identification of the allegedly infringing material — sufficient to permit us to locate it (full URLs to the specific page or pages on medicalcentreuk.org/, not the homepage).
4. Reasonably sufficient contact information — your name, address, telephone number, and email.
5. A good-faith statement that you have a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
6. An accuracy statement — that the information in the notification is accurate, and that you are authorised to act on behalf of the owner of the exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

4. Counter-Notice

If your content was removed in response to a copyright notice and you believe the removal was based on mistake or misidentification, you may file a counter-notice. A counter-notice should include:

• Your signature
• Identification of the material that was removed and the location at which it appeared before removal
• A statement that you have a good-faith belief that the material was removed as a result of mistake or misidentification
• Your name, address, and telephone number
• A statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales (or the relevant UK jurisdiction where you are based), and that you will accept service of process from the person who submitted the original notice

If we receive a valid counter-notice, we will forward it to the original complainant. If the original complainant does not file a court action seeking a restraining order against the user within 10-14 working days of receipt of the counter-notice, we may restore the removed material.

5. Repeat-Infringer Policy

medicalcentreuk.org/ maintains a policy of terminating in appropriate circumstances the access of users (including contributors and commenters) who are repeat infringers of copyright.

6. Knowingly False Notices

7. Fair Dealing Under the CDPA

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 provides several fair-dealing exceptions to copyright infringement, including:

• Section 29 — research and private study
• Section 30(1) — criticism or review
• Section 30(2) — reporting current events
• Section 30A — caricature, parody, or pastiche
• Section 31 — incidental inclusion
• Section 32 — illustration for instruction

8. Crown Copyright and the Open Government Licence

UK Government works — including most NHS England, NHS Digital, DHSC, CQC, MHRA, NICE, and ONS publications — are subject to Crown copyright under section 163 of the CDPA. Most Crown copyright material is licensed for re-use under the Open Government Licence (OGL) version 3.0, which permits copying, publishing, distributing, transmitting, adapting, and commercially exploiting the work, provided that the source is acknowledged.

We rely on OGL 3.0 where we summarise or extract Crown copyright material. Acknowledgement is given on the relevant page and in our Sources & Methodology. Some NHS publications carry separate licence terms (for example, NICE clinical guidelines have specific reuse terms); where this is the case, we comply with the specific licence rather than rely on OGL 3.0.

9. Trade Mark — The NHS, the NHS Logo, and Nominative Use

The NHS, the NHS logo, and the NHS lozenge are registered trade marks of the Department of Health and Social Care. We use the term “NHS” descriptively to identify NHS services and we do not display the NHS logo, the NHS lozenge, or NHS Identity colours on this site.

We also use the names of UK statutory bodies and individual practices nominatively — for example, “Care Quality Commission (CQC),” “General Medical Council (GMC),” “Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC),” “MHRA,” “NICE,” “NHS England,” “NHS Wales,” “Healthcare Improvement Scotland,” “RQIA,” “NHS Digital,” “Department of Health and Social Care,” and individual practice names — to identify the body or practice our entry covers. This is nominative use, permitted under UK trade mark law where the use is consistent with honest practices in industrial or commercial matters (Trade Marks Act 1994, section 11 honest practices defence).

If you are the rights holder for a referenced trade mark and you believe our use is outside the honest practices defence, email us with subject line Trade mark concern — we respond within 5 working days.

10. Defamation Act 2013 Framework

Our content is editorial reporting on UK medical centre administrative details — addresses, telephones, opening hours, CQC ratings, services offered, registration procedures. We rarely have occasion to publish defamation-relevant content; when we do reference NHS officials, regulators, or practice staff in their official capacity, we attribute statements to the official record and we correct factual errors when shown they are factual errors.

The Defamation Act 2013 applies in England and Wales (with separate but similar frameworks in Scotland under the Defamation and Malicious Publication (Scotland) Act 2021, and in Northern Ireland under the Defamation Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 once fully in force). Key defences include:

• Section 2 — Truth (formerly justification)
• Section 3 — Honest opinion (formerly fair comment)
• Section 4 — Publication on a matter of public interest (formerly the Reynolds defence)
• Section 5 — Operators of websites (protection in respect of user-generated content where the operator did not post the statement and reasonable identification routes are followed)
• Sections 6 and 7 — Reports protected by absolute or qualified privilege
• Section 1 serious-harm threshold — for an individual, the statement must have caused or be likely to cause serious harm to reputation

NHS officials, senior clinicians, regulators, and Royal College officers acting in their official capacity may be considered public figures for honest comment purposes where the comment concerns institutional conduct, and material on the public record concerning their official conduct may be the subject of fair comment / honest opinion under section 3 of the 2013 Act. Where the statement concerns a private figure, we are particularly careful with sourcing.

If you believe a statement on the site is factually incorrect, email us with subject line Defamation concern or Correction. Provide the page URL, the specific statement, and the source you believe shows it is incorrect. We respond within 7 working days.

11. What We Cannot Help With

• We cannot remove information about your NHS care from any NHS database — that is the NHS’s record; you must contact your practice or NHS Digital / NHS England Digital directly, with a Subject Access Request under UK GDPR Article 15
• We cannot remove information about you from the CQC’s public ratings or inspection reports — the CQC is its own data controller (and HIW, HIS, RQIA in the devolved nations)
• We cannot remove your registration as a doctor from the GMC register — that is the GMC’s statutory function
• We cannot remove accurate content drawn from public NHS, CQC, GMC, NMC, GPhC, GDC, HCPC, or MHRA publications under OGL 3.0
• We cannot represent you in litigation against any third party — consult a solicitor regulated by the SRA, Law Society of Scotland, or Law Society of Northern Ireland
• We cannot file NHS complaints on your behalf — the route is the practice, then the ICB / health board, then PHSO (or the relevant ombudsman in the devolved nations)
• We cannot remove your name from search engine results — that is a matter for the search engine under UK GDPR Article 17 (right to erasure) and the relevant case law on “the right to be delisted”

12. Contact

For copyright notices: info@medicalcentreuk.org with subject line Copyright notice.
For counter-notices: subject line Copyright counter-notice.
For trade mark concerns: subject line Trade mark concern.
For defamation concerns: subject line Defamation concern or Correction.