INFORMATION GOVERNANCE · USER TERMS
User Terms of Service
The terms that govern how NHS staff may use RTT Buddy, the conditions of access, and the responsibilities of every user.
| Document owner | Ali Robinson, Product Owner |
|---|---|
| Approved by | [Trust IG group to confirm] |
| Effective date | [DD Mmm YYYY] |
| Next review | [DD Mmm YYYY] |
This is a supplier-side template. Fields marked [Trust to confirm] are completed with the adopting trust before the service goes live. These terms sit alongside, and do not replace, the trust's own elective access policy and information governance policies.
1 Introduction and acceptance
These Terms of Service govern your use of RTT Buddy, a guidance tool for Referral to Treatment (RTT) pathway administration. They form an agreement between you, as an authorised user, and the operator of RTT Buddy, as made available through your NHS organisation.
By signing in and using RTT Buddy you confirm that you have read, understood, and agree to these terms. If you do not agree, do not use the service. If you are using the service on behalf of your organisation, you confirm you are authorised to do so.
Your organisation may apply additional local rules to your use of the service. Where a local rule is stricter than these terms, the local rule applies.
2 What RTT Buddy is, and what it is not
RTT Buddy answers plain-language questions about RTT scenarios and gives guidance on whether the RTT clock should start, stop, or pause, and which rule applies. Answers are grounded in your trust's elective access policy first, with the national RTT rules used as a fallback when the local policy is silent.
RTT Buddy is decision support for waiting-list administration. It is an aid to your own judgement. It does not make decisions for you, it does not change any record in any patient administration or clinical system, and it does not diagnose, treat, or make any clinical decision about a patient.
RTT Buddy does not replace your trust's access policy, your training, or the advice of your RTT lead or validation team. Where the tool and your local policy appear to conflict, your local policy and your RTT lead take precedence.
3 Definitions
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| RTT | Referral to Treatment: the national framework that measures the wait from referral to the start of definitive treatment. |
| The service | The RTT Buddy web application and any guidance it produces. |
| Authorised user | A member of staff granted access by their trust through the approved onboarding process. |
| Local policy | Your trust's elective access policy and any related operational standard operating procedures. |
| PID | Patient-identifiable data: any information that could identify a patient, for example name, NHS number, date of birth, hospital number, postcode, or address. |
| Confidence tier | The explicit indicator RTT Buddy attaches to each answer, showing how certain the guidance is. |
4 Who may use the service
RTT Buddy is for administrative and operational staff who manage RTT pathways and waiting lists, and for the colleagues who support them. Access is granted by your trust to named individuals only.
You may use the service only for legitimate work purposes connected to your role. You may not use it for personal, commercial, or research purposes outside the scope agreed by your trust.
5 Your account and access
Your account is personal to you. You are responsible for activity carried out under your sign-in.
- Keep your sign-in credentials confidential and do not share them with anyone, including colleagues.
- Do not use another person's account, or let another person use yours.
- Sign in only from devices and networks approved by your organisation.
- Tell your RTT lead or IT service desk promptly if you believe your account has been accessed by someone else.
Your trust controls who is added and removed. Access ends when you leave the relevant role or your organisation withdraws it.
6 No patient-identifiable data
RTT Buddy is designed so that it never needs to know who a patient is. RTT rules turn on events and timings, for example the referral date, a missed appointment, the start of active monitoring, or a decision to treat, not on identity.
A safety guardrail runs on the server and tries to detect and block likely identifiers before a question is processed. This is a backstop, not a substitute for your care. If identifiers are detected, your question may be blocked and you will be asked to rephrase it.
7 Acceptable use
You agree to use RTT Buddy responsibly. In particular, you must not:
- enter patient-identifiable data, or attempt to bypass the no-PID guardrail;
- rely on an answer as a final ruling without the checks described in section 8;
- upload, paste, or describe content that is unlawful, offensive, or unrelated to RTT administration;
- attempt to disrupt, probe, reverse engineer, or gain unauthorised access to the service;
- copy or share the trust's policy content or the tool's output outside your authorised work; or
- represent the tool's guidance as a clinical decision or as official trust policy.
Misuse may lead to suspension of access and may be referred to your organisation under its own conduct and information governance procedures.
8 Relying on answers: sources and confidence
Every answer names its source and states how confident the tool is in it. You must read both before you act. The tool is built to be honest about uncertainty rather than to sound certain.
Answers may draw on a live web search where local and national sources do not cover a point. Any web-sourced content is labelled as unverified and must be confirmed against your policy before you rely on it.
A flag for review is never a sign-off. When in doubt, escalate. Acting on guidance is always your decision, made together with your local policy and your RTT lead.
9 Accuracy and limitations
RTT Buddy uses an artificial intelligence model and is provided in good faith and with reasonable care. It can still be wrong, incomplete, or out of date, and policies change over time.
The tool is an aid, not an authority. You remain responsible for the decisions you record on a patient pathway. Where accuracy matters and the position is not clear, verify against your local policy and the national RTT guidance, and escalate to your RTT lead.
10 Monitoring, audit and analytics
To keep the service safe and to improve it, RTT Buddy records how each answer was reached: the policy section used, the national rule referenced, the confidence tier, and whether a web search was used. This trail is kept for assurance and improvement.
Logs record the de-identified scenario and the reasoning trail only. They do not store patient-identifiable data. Your trust may review usage at an aggregate level to understand where staff need support.
11 Data protection and privacy
The service is operated in line with UK data protection law. Your trust is the data controller for the staff account data and query content processed through the service, and the operator acts as its processor under a written agreement.
How your personal data as a user is handled is set out in the RTT Buddy Staff Privacy Notice and in the Data Protection Impact Assessment agreed with your trust. Please read the Staff Privacy Notice alongside these terms.
12 Availability and support
We aim to keep RTT Buddy available during working hours, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted access. The service may be unavailable for maintenance, updates, or reasons beyond our control.
If RTT Buddy is unavailable or you are unsure of an answer, fall back to your local access policy, the national RTT guidance, and your RTT lead. For access problems, contact the route your trust has given you.
13 Intellectual property
The RTT Buddy application, its design, and its content are owned by the operator or its licensors. Your trust's own policy content remains the property of your trust. You are granted a limited, non-transferable right to use the service for your authorised work, and nothing in these terms transfers ownership to you.
14 Liability and responsibility
RTT Buddy supports your decisions, it does not make them. Responsibility for what is recorded on a patient pathway, and for the management of that pathway, stays with you and your organisation.
To the extent permitted by law, the operator is not liable for loss arising from reliance on the tool's guidance where the checks in these terms were not followed. Nothing in these terms limits any liability that cannot be limited by law. This clause does not affect the statutory duties of your organisation.
15 Suspension and withdrawal of access
Your trust, or the operator acting on its instruction, may suspend or withdraw your access at any time, for example where these terms are breached, where there is a security or information governance concern, or where your role changes. Where practical you will be told the reason.
16 Changes to these terms
These terms may be updated from time to time, for example to reflect changes to the service, to national RTT guidance, or to your trust's requirements. When the terms change in a material way, you will be notified and may be asked to accept the updated terms before you continue to use the service. The version and date are shown in the document control table and version history.
17 Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction, unless your trust's agreement with the operator specifies otherwise.
18 Contact and acceptance
Questions about these terms or about RTT Buddy should go to your trust's RTT lead or information governance team in the first instance. Supplier contact details are provided to your trust under the service agreement.