Cookie policy
An overview of the cookies we use on the website
Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and allows us to improve our site.
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your device (for example, your computer or smartphone). It allows our website to recognise your device and store some information about your preferences or past actions.
We use the following cookies:
- Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into our website in order to post in the Forum.
- Analytical or performance cookies. These allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
- Preference cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you and remember your preferences (for example, your login details).
- Marketing cookies. These are used by our advertising partners (e.g. Facebook) to collect information about how you use our website (including visits to our cancer information pages) and show you associated adverts on other sites. The information that’s been used to build that profile may also be used to find other people with similar interests to yours so that our adverts can be shown to them too.
You can opt-out of each cookie category (except strictly necessary cookies) by clicking on the "cookie settings" button below.
Why do we use cookies?
We monitor how people use our website so we can improve it. If you visit our website, we may record information including:
- The areas of the website you visit
- The amount of time you spend on the site
- Whether you are new to the site or have visited it before
- How you came to our website — for example, through an email link
- The type of device or browser you use
- How you use the website and the quality of your experience – for example, we may record a session or test different variations of a webpage to see how easy it is for you to find what you are looking for so we can improve the service.
We also use cookies to make sure we keep your information confidential and secure as you move through secure or password protected areas of our websites. Some of the cookies that we use are 'Session Cookies' which are deleted when you close your browser. Others remain on your browser or device until they expire or you delete them from your browser history – these are known as 'Persistent Cookies'.
All cookies have an 'owner' which can be identified by looking at the domain (i.e. the company or website name in the cookie). Cookies can either be first-party (i.e. they’re owned by the website who set them) or third-party (i.e. they’re not owned by the website who set them). We use both first-party and third-party cookies on our websites.