Cookie policy – London Specialist Hospitals

The information on this page refers solely to your privacy in relation to the use of cookies on this website and the data they collect. The cookies we set do not collect personal information.

About cookies

Cookies are small files sent by web servers to your web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox or Chrome) and stored on your computer’s hard drive.

The information is then sent back to the server each time the browser loads a website page from the same server. This enables a web server to identify and track individual web browsers.

There are two main kinds of cookies: session cookies and persistent cookies. Session cookies are deleted from your computer when you close your browser, whereas persistent cookies remain stored on your computer until deleted, or until they reach their expiry date.

London Specialist Hospitals uses certain essential cookies which are needed to enable the provision of our website’s core service, which is to provide information about our services.

In addition to these essential cookies, the additional cookies we use are not necessary to provide the core service but do help us to improve our website experience. You can opt-out of the additional cookies by choosing ‘Reject additional cookies’ using the cookie pop-up banner that appears the first time you visit the website. If you have previously consented to additional cookies, and would like to change your mind, you can click on the ‘C’ cookie icon in the right-hand corner of the page and update your preferences. Further information on how to manage cookies more generally is detailed below.

What information do we collect?

Anonymous information is automatically collected for every visitor to this site. We collect anonymous information about how you have used our website and the technology you have used to access it.

What do we do with anonymous information?

The anonymous information we collect is used to help us improve our website and the information on it.

It helps us to understand how our website is being used and how we can make it better.

Here are some examples of the anonymous information we collect:

Pages viewed
IP address (Not stored and only used to determine city/country)
Browser type
Browser language
Operating system

We do not make any association between the anonymous information we collect and a visitor’s identity.

What cookies do we place?

To make full use of our website you need to accept cookies. Without cookies you can still visit our website but some features won’t work.

If you would like to limit or block the usage of essential cookies you can do so in your browser settings.

You can learn more about cookies and how to manage them yourself at www.aboutcookies.org.

In addition to the cookies set by our website, a visit to this site will also set cookies from other services that we have decided to use in order to help improve our site. These services are described below.

Google Analytics

We use this service to track and monitor website usage. We have chosen to enable features of this service known as ‘advertiser features’. These features benefit us by allowing us to see more information about how this website is used. By enabling these features we enable Google Analytics to collect data about site traffic via Google advertising cookies and anonymous identifiers.

If you would rather that your visits to this website are not recorded then please consider looking at Google Analytics’ currently available opt-outs.

Google Analytics sets these cookies on your device:

_ga is used to distinguish users. This cookie does not contain any personal information. It expires after two years
__Utma keeps track of the number of times a visitor has been to the site, when their first visit was, and when their last visit occurred. This a persistent cookie and does not expire
__Utmc takes a timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor leaves a site. It expires after 30 minutes
__Utmz keeps track of the page a visitor came from to get to the site. It expires after six months
_dc_gtm_UA-32175898-1 is used to add the Google Analytics code from Google Tag Manager. It expires after 10 minutes

Meta (Facebook)

The specific cookies used by the Facebook pixel can vary over time as Facebook updates its technology and privacy policies. However, the Facebook pixel typically places the following cookies:

_fbp: This cookie is used to store and track visits to websites that have the Facebook pixel installed. It helps Facebook deliver targeted advertisements based on the user’s browsing behaviour.
fr: This cookie is used to provide advertising and measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. It helps deliver relevant ads to users and track conversions.
tr: This cookie is used to measure ad performance and helps deliver targeted ads based on the user’s browsing behaviour.
datr: This cookie is used to identify the web browser being used and prevent fraudulent activity on the Facebook platform.

LinkedIn places the following cookies:

bcookie: this is a browser identifier cookie to uniquely identify devices accessing LinkedIn to detect abuse on the platform and for diagnostic purposes. It expires after a year.
bscookie: used for remembering that a logged in user is verified by two factor authentication and has previously logged in. Expires after 1 year.
JSESSIONID: used for Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) protection and URL signature validation. Session cookie.
lang: used to remember a user’s language setting to ensure LinkedIn.com displays in the language selected by the user in their settings. Session cookie.
lidc: used to facilitate data centre selection. Expires after 24 hours.
sdsc: signed data service context cookie used for database routing to ensure consistency across all databases when a change is made. Used to ensure that user-inputted content is immediately available to the submitting user upon submission. Session cookie.
li_gc: used to store consent of guests regarding the use of cookies for non-essential purposes. Expires after 6 months.
li_mc: used as a temporary cache to avoid database lookups for a member’s consent for use of non-essential cookies and used for having consent information on the client side to enforce consent on the client side. Expires after 6 months
UserMatchHistory: LinkedIn Ads ID syncing. Expires after 30 days.
AnalyticsSyncHistory: used to store information about the time a sync took place with the lms_analytics cookie. Expires after 30 days.
lms_ads: used to identify LinkedIn Members off LinkedIn for advertising. Expires after 30 days
lms_analytics: Used to identify LinkedIn Members off LinkedIn for analytics. Expires after 30 days.
li_fat_id: Member indirect identifier for Members for conversion tracking, retargeting, analytics. Expires after 30 days.
li_sugr: used to make a probabilistic match of a user’s identity outside the Designated Countries. Expires after 90 days.
_guid: used to identify a LinkedIn Member for advertising through Google Ads. Expires after 90 days.
BizographicsOptOut: used to determine opt-out status for non-members. Expires after 10 years.
li_giant: indirect identifier for groups of LinkedIn Members used for conversion tracking. Expires after 7 days.
oribi_cookie_test: to determine if tracking can be enabled on current domain. Session cookie.
oribili_user_guid: used to count unique visitors to a website. Expires after 1 year.
in_or: used to determine if Oribi analytics can be carried out on a specific domain. Expires after 1 day.