HPRA social media policy
The HPRA uses social media to inform members of the public, healthcare professionals and other relevant stakeholders about our work.
We post content on the following social media accounts:
Contacting the HPRA
We welcome feedback from followers. However, there may be delays in viewing or responding to replies or direct messages, and we may not be able to respond to all contact we receive on our social media platforms. Therefore, sending a message via social media will not be considered as contacting the HPRA for official purposes.
The best way to contact us is by emailing our customer services team at info@hpra.ie or by phoning us on +353 (1) 676 4971. Please see our Contact page for more detailed contact information, including email addresses for specific queries.
Please note that the HPRA does not give personal health advice. If you have concerns about your health or an urgent query about a medicine or medical device you are using, please contact a healthcare professional.
If you have a media query relevant to the role of the HPRA, then please submit this to Kano Communications who will then forward it to the right person at the HPRA on your behalf. Contact details for Kano Communications are available on our Contact page.
If you follow us on social media, you can expect content to cover the following:
- Alerts about new content on our website*. These will generally relate to important or urgent safety updates and recalls notices published by the HPRA about medicines, medical devices, cosmetics or other products we regulate;
- HPRA events and occasional posts from other conferences and meetings;
- Press releases and other HPRA news and announcements;
- HPRA publications, reports and consultations;
- Recruitment notices.
*If you wish to receive alerts about all healthcare professional communications and about industry guides and forms, then please make sure you register for our website email alerting service.
Sharing ≠ endorsement
The HPRA will share posts from other accounts from time to time, but this should not be considered an endorsement of the content or the account. We will share regulatory and safety information, as well as general public health and consumer information, if we think that the details may be of interest to our followers.
Who we follow
If you follow us, we will not automatically follow you back. Sometimes we’ll follow you so that we can exchange direct messages.
If we do follow social media accounts, it does not imply endorsement of any kind.
Privacy and data protection
The HPRA strongly recommends that you avoid posting anything personal or private about yourself or anyone else. You should not discuss personal health matters, or give out any personal details. This is for the protection of personal data and private information.
The HPRA does not record the contact details of those following our accounts.
Availability
The social media platforms we use may occasionally be unavailable and we accept no responsibility for lack of service due to downtime.
Moderation and inappropriate content
The HPRA will not engage with user content that is:
- Spam;
- Inappropriate or misleading;
- Malicious;
- Potentially defamatory or harmful to the HPRA.
The HPRA will moderate and remove any comments which are abusive, derogatory, defamatory or malicious in nature, or that do not comply with our social media policy.
Abusive or spam posts will result in followers being blocked and reported directly to the social media provider.
Comments or opinions expressed by followers of the HPRA do not represent the views of the HPRA.