Who owns the rights in works produced by NHS staff ?

In most cases the rights to works created or commissioned as part of an individual's employment with the NHS will be owned by the NHS Board they are employed by. That is the employee, while having an important role to play in facilitating the sharing of works they have created, will not retain permission to share or profit from the work should they move onto different employment.

Can I apply Creative Commons licenses to work I produce as part of my employment in the NHS?

Yes. Creative Commons licenses are in widespread use within the NHS and  in cases where you have produced work which you wish to distribute to a wide audience with only simple conditions attached a Creative Commons license is an appropriate choice.

Where do I go to get a Creative Commons license?

The Creative Commons website has a license chooser tool which will ask you questions about what, if any, conditions you wish to use when sharing a work and will generate license information that you can apply to your own work. The site for the license chooser is: Choose a license for your work. More general  information on Creative Commons can be found at their website: Creativecommons.org.

Is there a standard copyright statement for NHS Scotland produced resources?

Yes. If a work has been produced, and it is appropriate to share it with limited restrictions, you can use the following copyright statement, adapting the name of your Health Board and the year of publication as appropriate.

© NHS Education for Scotland 2020. You can copy or reproduce the information in this resource for use within NHSScotland and for non-commercial educational purposes. Use of this document for commercial purposes is permitted only with the written permission of NHS Education for Scotland.

It is also becoming increasingly common for public health resources to be shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial-No Derivatives license where the educational purpose is less explicit. Again, you should adapt this with details of your Health Board and year of publication and include a link to the license details on the Creative Commons site.

© 2024 NHS Education for Scotland. (name of resource) by NHS Education for Scotland is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. To access a copy of this license, visit creative commons.

If your resource makes use of material for which you have limited permission to reuse you should include this additional disclaimer:

Some rights reserved

Parts of this resource cannot be reproduced without permission from the original copyright holders. This applies specifically to third-party content, such as figures and images from publications, and stock imagery (e.g. Shutterstock imagery).