Terms and Conditions (EULA)

End-User License Agreement ("Agreement")

Last updated: October 04, 2021

We know that no one likes to read lengthy documents, and many people sign EULAs (End User Licence Agreements) without reading them or considering their implications.  We have therefore tried to make this document as easy to read and understand as possible, and to keep it brief while providing the information that you need to understand in order to enter into the agreement.  You should also consider our Privacy Policy - available under related articles.

Please read this End-User License Agreement carefully before using OPERA. In particular please consider the roles and responsibilities section that contains important details about your obligations with respect to patients and their referrals or episodes of care.  This End-User License Agreement applies to individuals using OPERA for either full clinical management or for eERS GOS18 referrals only.

Interpretation and Definitions

Interpretation

The words of which the initial letter is capitalised have meanings defined under the following conditions. The following definitions shall have the same meaning regardless of whether they appear in singular or in plural.

Definitions

For the purposes of this End-User License Agreement:

• Agreement means this End-User License Agreement that forms the entire agreement between You and the Company regarding the use of the Application.
• Application means the software program provided by the Company downloaded by You to a Device, named OPERA
• Company (referred to as either "the Company", "We", "Us" or "Our" in this Agreement) refers to Referral Management Services Ltd, 61A Kings Street, Knutsford, Cheshire.
• Content refers to content such as text, images, or other information that can be posted, uploaded, linked to or otherwise made available by You, regardless of the form of that content.
• Country refers to: United Kingdom
• Device means any device that can access the Application such as a computer, a cellphone or a digital tablet.
• Third-Party Services means any services or content (including data, information, applications and other products services) provided by a third-party that may be displayed, included or made available by the Application.
• You means the individual accessing or using the Application or the company, or other legal entity on behalf of which such individual is accessing or using the Application, as applicable.

Acknowledgment

By clicking the "I Agree" button, downloading or using the Application, You are agreeing to be bound by the terms and conditions of this Agreement. If You do not agree to the terms of this Agreement, do not click on the "I Agree" button, do not download or do not use the Application. For most users, OPERA is a cloud based application and your use of the system is predicated on your agreement with this Agreement.

This Agreement is a legal document between You and the Company and it governs your use of the Application made available to You by the Company.

The Application is licensed, not sold, to You by the Company for use strictly in accordance with the terms of this Agreement.

License

Scope of License

The Company grants You a revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited license to use the Application strictly in accordance with the terms of this Agreement. The license that is granted to You by the Company is solely for your use in delivering activity for Primary Eyecare Services or using the GOS18 electronic referral process and strictly in accordance with the terms of this Agreement.

License Restrictions

You agree not to, and You will not permit others to:

• License, sell, rent, lease, assign, distribute, transmit, host, outsource, disclose or otherwise commercially exploit the Application or make the Application available to any third party.
• Copy or use the Application for any purpose other than as permitted under the above section 'License'.
• Modify, make derivative works of, disassemble, decrypt, reverse compile or reverse engineer any part of the Application.
• Remove, alter or obscure any proprietary notice (including any notice of copyright or trademark) of the Company or its affiliates, partners, suppliers or the licensors of the Application.
• Provide your user details to any other person, irrespective of their personal or professional relationship - the audit process within OPERA has the same legal standing as traditional medical records and hence requires you to be identified correctly within the system at all times.  A breach of this restriction will lead to immediate suspension of your OPERA account.
• Disable or otherwise avoid the use of the security measures put in place to ensure the data security of OPERA including, but not limited to, its Multi-Factor Authentication systems.

Your Responsibilities

Your responsibilities as a user of the Application include, but are not limited, to those clinical obligations outlined by your appropriate regulator; either the General Optical Council or General Medical Council.  This includes the responsibility to manage any referral made by you on behalf of a patient including ensuring that the referral is accurate and that you maintain responsibility for such referrals until they have been received and accepted by the receiving organisation. 

Referring or Transferring Patients via OPERA*

The following requirements are in place when referring, or transferring care to another provider:

• You should explain to the patient that you plan to transfer part or all of their care, and explain why.
• You must pass on to the healthcare professional involved:
  • relevant information about the patient’s condition and history
  • the purpose of transferring care and/or the investigation, care or treatment the patient needs.
  • you must ensure that if requesting access to a patient's Summary Care Record, that you have their Permission to View and have recorded this appropriately
  • you must ensure that only individuals with both consent and a legitimate clinical relationship to the patient view confidential medical information - including, but not limited to, Summary Care Records or GP Connect records.
• You must make sure the patient is informed about who is responsible for their overall care and if the transfer is temporary or permanent. You should make sure the patient knows whom to contact if they have questions or concerns about their care.
• You should check that the patient understands what information you will pass on and why.
• You should check on all referrals to ensure that they have been received 
• You should act on any information provided to you as part of the referral process, and you should regularly review your referrals in OPERA to see if triage or other responses have been provided
• You should ensure that urgent and emergency referrals follow your local protocols including, where indicated, a telephone call to the provider to ensure that the referral has been received
• You should not use OPERA for 2WW referrals and instead follow your local protocol

If the patient objects to a disclosure of information about them that you consider essential to the safe provision of care, you should explain that you cannot refer them or arrange for their treatment without also disclosing that information. You will be accountable for your decisions to transfer care or refer a patient and the steps you have taken to make sure that patient safety is not compromised including following up on referrals to ensure that they have been actioned, that the resulting electronic referral in the Application presents the information as entered and is displayed correctly.

Leaving a practice

If you leave a practice you should inform the Company of this so that your access to the practice is revoked.  Practices should also ensure that they amend their Leavers Protocol to include the revocation of OPERA access.

Contact Details should be accurate

You should ensure that the details held by us in relation to your:

• Email address
• Telephone number
• Postal address if held

are accurate and up to date.  The Application will communicate important clinical information to you via email and you should ensure that you regularly review your email, inform the Company if you have not received emails in relation to Triage or other comments (viewable on OPERA) or if you need to change your email address.

Fitness to practice

You should make us aware of any fitness to practice issues concerning your ability to refer, accept referrals if you are a provider, or manage clinical data in any manner.  Failure to inform us is likely to be a breach of any restrictions placed on your registration and will be reported to the relevant Statutory Regulator.

Intellectual Property

The Application, including without limitation all copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets and other intellectual property rights are, and shall remain, the sole and exclusive property of the Company.

The Company shall not be obligated to indemnify or defend You with respect to any third party claim arising out of or relating to the Application. To the extent the Company is required to provide indemnification by applicable law, the Company shall be solely responsible for the investigation, defence, settlement and discharge of any claim that the Application or your use of it infringes any third party intellectual property rights.

Third-Party Services

The Application may display, include or make available third-party content (including data, information, applications and other products services) or provide links to third-party websites or services. You acknowledge and agree that the Company shall not be responsible for any Third-party Services, including their accuracy, completeness, timeliness, validity, copyright compliance, legality, decency, quality or any other aspect thereof. The Company does not assume and shall not have any liability or responsibility to You or any other person or entity for any Third-party Services.

You must comply with applicable Third parties' Terms of agreement when using the Application. Third-party Services and links thereto are provided solely as a convenience to You and You access and use them entirely at your own risk and subject to such third parties' Terms and conditions.

Privacy Policy

The Company collects, stores, maintains, and shares information about You in accordance with Our Privacy Policy: https://help.optom-referrals.org/article/454-opera-privacy-policy

By accepting this Agreement, You acknowledge that You hereby agree and consent to the terms and conditions of Our Privacy Policy. We do not share or otherwise use your data for any purpose beyond the proper and legal deployment of the OPERA platform and its functionality.  We share your data with Primary Eyecare Services as part of this requirement.

Term and Termination

This Agreement shall remain in effect until terminated by You or the Company. The Company may, in its sole discretion, at any time and for any or no reason, suspend or terminate this Agreement with or without prior notice.

This Agreement will terminate immediately, without prior notice from the Company, in the event that you fail to comply with any provision of this Agreement. You may also terminate this Agreement by emailing the Company requesting a termination of agreement who will remove your access and personal data as far as is permissible by law and the relevant regulators (The General Optical Council, The General Medical Council)

Upon termination of this Agreement, You shall cease all use of the Application. Termination of this Agreement will not limit any of the Company's rights or remedies at law or in equity in case of breach by You (during the term of this Agreement) of any of your obligations under the present Agreement.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold the Company and its parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, employees, agents, partners and licensors (if any) harmless from any claim or demand, including reasonable legal fees, due to or arising out of your: (a) use of the Application; (b) violation of this Agreement or any law or regulation; or (c) violation of any right of a third party.

No Warranties

The Application is provided to You "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" and with all faults and defects without warranty of any kind. To the maximum extent permitted under applicable law, the Company, on its own behalf and on behalf of its affiliates and its and their respective licensors and service providers, expressly disclaims all warranties, whether express, implied, statutory or otherwise, with respect to the Application, including all implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement, and warranties that may arise out of course of dealing, course of performance, usage or trade practice.

Without limitation to the foregoing, the Company provides no warranty or undertaking, and makes no representation of any kind that the Application will meet your requirements, achieve any intended results, be compatible or work with any other software, applications, systems or services, operate without interruption, meet any performance or reliability standards or be error free or that any errors or defects can or will be corrected.

Without limiting the foregoing, neither the Company nor any of the company's provider makes any representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied: (i) as to the operation or availability of the Application, or the information, content, and materials or products included thereon; (ii) that the Application will be uninterrupted or error-free; (iii) as to the accuracy, reliability, or currency of any information or content provided through the Application; or (iv) that the Application, its servers, the content, or e-mails sent from or on behalf of the Company are free of viruses, scripts, trojan horses, worms, malware, time bombs or other harmful components.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain types of warranties or limitations on applicable statutory rights of a consumer, so some or all of the above exclusions and limitations may not apply to You. But in such a case the exclusions and limitations set forth in this section shall be applied to the greatest extent enforceable under applicable law. To the extent any warranty exists under law that cannot be disclaimed, the Company shall be solely responsible for such warranty.

Limitation of Liability

Notwithstanding any damages that You might incur, the entire liability of the Company and any of its suppliers under any provision of this Agreement and your exclusive remedy for all of the foregoing shall be limited to 100 GBP.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no event shall the Company or its suppliers be liable for any special, incidental, indirect, or consequential damages whatsoever (including, but not limited to, damages for loss of profits, loss of data or other information, for business interruption, for personal injury, loss of privacy arising out of or in any way related to the use of or inability to use the Application, third-party software and/or third-party hardware used with the Application, or otherwise in connection with any provision of this Agreement), even if the Company or any supplier has been advised of the possibility of such damages and even if the remedy fails of its essential purpose.

Severability and Waiver

Severability

If any provision of this Agreement is held to be unenforceable or invalid, such provision will be changed and interpreted to accomplish the objectives of such provision to the greatest extent possible under applicable law and the remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect.

Waiver

Except as provided herein, the failure to exercise a right or to require performance of an obligation under this Agreement shall not effect a party's ability to exercise such right or require such performance at any time thereafter nor shall be the waiver of a breach constitute a waiver of any subsequent breach.

Product Claims

The Company does not make any warranties concerning the Application.

Changes to this Agreement

The Company reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to modify or replace this Agreement at any time. If a revision is material we will provide at least 30 days' notice prior to any new terms taking effect. What constitutes a material change will be determined at the sole discretion of the Company.

By continuing to access or use the Application after any revisions become effective, You agree to be bound by the revised terms. If You do not agree to the new terms, You are no longer authorised to use the Application.

We will inform you of any material revisions on the homepage of the application with a link to the revised document as well as a summary of the changes to ensure that they are clear.

Governing Law

The laws of the Country, excluding its conflicts of law rules, shall govern this Agreement and your use of the Application. Your use of the Application may also be subject to other local, state, national, or international laws.

Entire Agreement

The Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between You and the Company regarding your use of the Application and supersedes all prior and contemporaneous written or oral agreements between You and the Company.

You may be subject to additional terms and conditions that apply when You use or purchase other Company's services, which the Company will provide to You at the time of such use or purchase.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Agreement, You can contact Us:

• By email: hello@referral.support

References and Links

*Adapted from: https://www.gmc-uk.org/ethical-guidance/ethical-guidance-for-doctors/delegation-and-referral/delegation-and-referral and https://guidance.college-optometrists.org/guidance-contents/communication-partnership-and-teamwork-domain/working-with-colleagues/referrals/