Copyright

NHS staff in England may copy and share extracts from most printed and digital work in these ways:

1. CLA Licence Plus

This is the agreement signed between the Copyright Licensing Agency and the Department of Health and Social Care for the NHS in England.

See a summary of the main Licence permissions and the Copying Guidelines poster.

Use the Check Permissions Tool to check whether what you want to copy is covered by the Licence.

2. Copyright Act and Library Privilege

If copies cannot be made under CLA Licence Plus, NHS library staff may supply Library Privilege copies under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988. This includes digital as well as printed works.

If you want to share the copy, or make further copies, and the article cannot be obtained from an NHS library, a copyright fee needs to be paid.  This is a Copyright Fee Paid (CFP) article. 

The following have been prepared by librarians in the NHS Copyright First Responders group:

• Library and inter-library document supply and copyright in the NHS
• NHS CLA Licence and Library Privilege FAQs
• NHS copyright fee paid articles decision tree
• NHS-higher education crossover guidance
• Using copyright materials in presentations and training

Library staff requiring help with copyright-related queries are very welcome to contact the First Responders on [email protected].