Our social media channels – house rules
On our social media channels you can find out about the latest news on lung health and the work of Asthma + Lung UK: how we fight for your right to breathe, fund world-class research that changes the lives of millions of people; and help people with our expert advice and support. You can also speak to other people who live with a lung condition or who support a family member, friend or colleague – you are not alone as 1 in 5 people will develop a lung condition in the UK in their lifetime.
To ensure everyone has a positive experience, we need your help in keeping our social media channels safe, informative and enjoyable spaces. These are our House Rules:
Stay safe
It’s all too easy to share personal information about yourself or other people on social media. So please remember not to share personal details such as your address or phone number and don’t share details with anyone you don’t know. If you need to share personal information with us (e.g. your name, address, phone number or health information), you are welcome to send us a private message or contact us by emailing info@asthmaandlung.org.uk instead.
If you have a medical question you can speak to our nurses and healthcare advisors on our helpline on 0300 222 5800 (lines open 9am to 5pm GMT, Monday to Friday, excluding national holidays).
We’re not responsible for the privacy or security practices of social media platforms or users.
Be respectful
We have thousands of followers and everyone will have different opinions and experiences of lung conditions. We ask that any comments or discussions on our social media channels are respectful to other members, as well as our staff and volunteers.
- We will not tolerate provocation, abuse, discrimination, harassment, obscene, violent, unlawful or threatening language or imagery directed at us, our members, staff and volunteers.
- We will not allow spamming (including repeated links to other websites), product advertisements, defamatory comments, fraudulent or misleading content, or statements that claim to be cures for lung disease or any other conditions.
- We will not accept deliberately controversial comments or persistent inflammatory comments that have been posted to provoke reaction.
If you think we have not addressed any concerns you may have, we would invite you to share them or any complaint through the correct channel by emailing info@asthmaandlung.org.uk.
Users who don’t adhere to our house rules may have their comments hidden or removed, will not receive a response to direct messages and may be blocked. For anyone posting abusive, discriminatory, harassing, obscene, violent, unlawful or threatening content we reserve the right to report their behaviour to the associated social media platform. Please do let us know if you think any of the comments on our social media channels violate these house rules by emailing info@asthmaandlung.org.uk, sending us a message or reporting them to the relevant platform directly.
Help us create a safe space on our social media channels for everyone with a lung condition.
Know what to expect
Our core office hours are between 9am and 5pm GMT, Monday to Friday, excluding national holidays. Our social media channels are actively managed during these core hours. Outside of these hours, our channels are only monitored for urgent enquiries. We aim to respond to direct enquiries as quickly as we can (usually within five working days).
We cannot offer in-depth health or medical advice over social media. The Asthma + Lung UK helpline offers advice, information and support by phone on 0300 222 5800 during our core office hours.
We may sometimes post links to relevant non-Asthma + Lung UK content and we will do our best to only post content we believe to be accurate. However, we are not responsible for the content of external websites.
Unfortunately, we’re only able to respond to enquiries in English.
Get expert advice
The advice we provide will always have been checked by an in-house expert and if we feel you need more tailored support, such as help on a medical issue, we will refer you to our helpline team.
Please be mindful that people may post about certain tips that they have found helpful to manage their lung condition, before you act on any advice you see or read, speak to your GP or nurse (or our helpline), as what works for one person may not work for another.
Be original
We love it when you share videos, photos and more with us on social media – but you must own the rights or have permission to share something. That means only posting content you’ve created and using images you own. You are responsible for the content that you choose to share – don’t share content with us that infringes someone else’s rights.
We might share the content you post on the same social media platform with our followers – so if you tweet, we might retweet it on our Twitter channels.
If we want to share your content on a different social media platform or through other means such as on our website or blog, we will always ask your permission first. In these situations, we can give credit by giving your name if you give us permission.
Our Terms of Use
Each social media platform has its own Terms of Use which outlines how you (and we) are allowed to use the platform. We recommend familiarising yourself with those terms.
We abide by the community standards and policies of each social media platform we use, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn
Asthma + Lung UK has the right to change or update these house rules at any time. We’ll clearly state the date that these rules were updated below.
[February 2022]