third party

[sarawilcox]

Not 3rd party.

We're proposing to add it to this list under numbers in the content guide.

https://service-manual.nhs.uk/content/numbers-measurements-dates-time

For discussion at upcoming Stytle Council meeting.

[sarawilcox]

At December Style Council meeting, we discussed "third party".

Comments:

“I didn't even know we used ordinal numbers. It's not easy for people with English as an additional language to understand.”

Proposal

That we add “third party” to this list in our guidance on numbers in Numbers, measurements, dates and time.

We do not use ordinal numbers in phrases like:

first aid 

first time 

first visit 

secondhand smoke 

second opinion 

Add third party. Proposal approved (21).

Action: get clinical approval.

Note, I think at the next Style Council meeting we should also consider alternatives to “third party”. Some of our legal docs use this term but, for example, rather than “third party software”, the GOV.UK style guide recommends “commercial software”. Instead of “third party websites”, we could probably say “other websites” or “external websites”.

The NHS App has a page about third party services.

See also our website page on Accessing GP services for someone else, with proxy access. “This is sometimes called proxy access or third party access”

Needs further research and discussion.