Cookies – what are they?

A ‘cookie’ is a small text file that’s stored on your computer, tablet or telephone when you visit a website. A cookie will contain some anonymous information such as a unique identifier and the site name and some digits and numbers.

Some cookies are deleted when you close down your browser. These are known as session cookies. Others remain on your device until they expire or you delete them from your cache. These are called persistent cookies and they enable us to remember things about you as a returning visitor.

To find out more about cookies, visit www.allaboutcookies.org.

What to do if you don’t want cookies to be set

Some people find the idea of a website storing information on their computer or mobile device a bit intrusive, particularly when this information is stored and used by a third party without them knowing. Although this is generally quite harmless you may not, for example, want to see advertising that has been targeted to your interests. If you prefer, it is possible to block some or all cookies or even to delete cookies that have already been set; but you need to be aware that you might lose some functions of that website.

How we use cookies

On this site, persistent cookies are used. Persistent cookies are used to track visitor behaviour as they move around a site, and this data is used to try and understand what people do and don’t like about a site. This practice is known as Web Analytics.  Since Google started providing its own analytics technology free of charge to website owners, almost all websites use some form of it – although there are also paid-for services available to rival Google’s. Analytics cookies are probably the most common form of persistent cookies in use today.

We also use a session cookie, which only lasts for the duration of users using the website. This cookie is used by this website to identify you as a user between page loads. This allows us to remember certain settings, like your settings for the quick quote you were using before you were asked to sign in or register. This cookie is destroyed each time you close your browser. We also use a session cookie to allow you to sign in to this website. The cookie will remain on your computer for up to 30 days or until you click ‘sign out’. Until that time, you’ll remain signed in to this website.

We also have third party cookies, which are created by an external service when you use a page on our website. These cookies are specific to the third party’s domain and accordingly the data held in them can be seen and managed by the third party and not by us. We control whether or not we use the third party service with our website and how it is integrated and presented on our website. We do not have control over the cookies themselves.

We use YouTube service to host video content, and embed YouTube’s player in our web pages to allow you to watch the video without leaving our website. YouTube’s embedded player currently creates and updates a Flash LSO called s.ytimg.com. We have no direct control over YouTube’s use of the data stored in this object. For more information, please read Google’s privacy policy ( You Tube is part of Google).

We use Google Maps on our site to provide detailed information on how to locate our hospitals and the hotels they recommend. Google Maps stores two cookies, NID & PREF. We use Google’s interactive maps because we believe they provide a helpful way for our visitors to see the hospitals in our network. We use the Google Maps tools on the basis that Google adheres to its privacy policy and its terms of service for Google Maps.

Are you happy for us to use cookies?

Some features that are designed to give you a better online experience only work if we use cookies.

If you would like to find out how to control or disable cookies, you can do so at www.allaboutcookies.org.