Five-year agreement ensures copyright compliance across Northern Ireland’s health and social care sector

Health and Social Care Northern Ireland (HSCNI) has renewed a key five-year agreement with the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA), securing blanket permissions to reuse published content in a legally compliant and efficient way.

The licence enables HSCNI staff to copy, share, and reuse extracts from millions of books, journals, and magazines across print and digital formats, without needing to seek individual permissions from rightsholders. This supports the delivery of training, internal communications, and evidence-based practice while reducing administrative burden and ensuring copyright compliance across the system.

The agreement also permits staff to receive unencrypted (DRM-free) documents from authorised supply services such as the British Library, helping ensure organisations can reuse published materials in a format that supports day-to-day workflows.

Petula Peters, CLA’s Public Sector Development Manager, said:

“This five-year agreement reflects our ongoing commitment to supporting the information needs of the health and social care sector in Northern Ireland. By working closely with stakeholders to co-develop a licence tailored to their workflows, we’re helping ensure content can be accessed and shared confidently and compliantly across the health and care system. It’s empowering collaboration while respecting the value of published works.”

This renewed deal builds on a longstanding relationship between CLA and regional public sector organisations, and supports the broader goal of enabling smarter, more efficient use of knowledge resources across government and healthcare systems.