Expert Live Chat Terms of Use
For End Users of the Human Expert Live Chat Service
Effective: 24 July 2026
IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ BEFORE USING EXPERT LIVE CHAT
Expert Live Chat is a human-to-human healthcare support service delivered by regulated healthcare professionals. It does not provide AI-generated or automated responses. Our professionals may provide clinical advice within their professional competence and the scope of the service. The service supports, but does not replace, your own healthcare team and must not be used for emergencies, labour, birth or other time-critical concerns.
1. About these Terms
These Terms of Use ("Terms") govern an individual's access to and use of the Expert Live Chat service (the "Service"). They apply whether the Service is accessed through an EricaAI website or through the website, application or platform of an organisation that has integrated the Service (a "Business Customer").
The Service is provided by Epical Global Ltd ("Epical", "we", "us" or "our"), company number 12065790, registered office at 82A James Carter Rd, Mildenhall, Suffolk, IP28 7DE.
These Terms relate only to Expert Live Chat. They do not apply to any separate EricaAI automated or AI-enabled service.
Where a Business Customer makes the Service available through its own website or platform, that Business Customer may have separate terms governing its website or other services. Those separate terms do not alter the clinical scope or professional operation of Expert Live Chat unless we expressly agree otherwise.
When these Terms are made available to you in or before the chat and you choose to start or continue using the Service, you agree to comply with them. If you do not agree, you should not use the Service.
These Terms should be read together with the Expert Live Chat Clinical Advice Disclaimer and Expert Live Chat Privacy Notice.
2. Who may use the Service
The Service is intended for individuals aged 16 or over. You must not use the Service if you are under 16.
The Service is intended primarily for your own personal use. You may discuss your baby or child where relevant to your question, but you should only provide information about another person where you are entitled to do so.
If you use the Service on behalf of another adult, you must have their authority to do so and must not misrepresent your identity or your relationship to them.
3. What Expert Live Chat provides
Expert Live Chat is a human-to-human text chat service. No AI-generated or automated response is used in this Service.
The Service is delivered by appropriately regulated healthcare professionals, including NMC-registered midwives and, where appropriate, professionals regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
Our healthcare professionals may provide information, clinical advice and appropriate signposting within their professional competence and the scope of the Service.
Advice is based on the information available during a remote text conversation. A professional cannot physically examine you or your baby, take observations, perform tests, see changes that may only be apparent in person, or necessarily access your complete medical or maternity record.
For these reasons, a healthcare professional may advise you to contact your own midwife, maternity unit, GP, prescriber, NHS 111, emergency services or another appropriate service, or to attend for an in-person assessment.
4. The Service supports - but does not replace - your own healthcare team
Expert Live Chat is designed to supplement the healthcare available to you. It does not take over or replace the role of your existing midwife, maternity unit, GP, prescriber or other healthcare professionals responsible for your ongoing care.
Your own healthcare team may have access to your full records, examination findings, test results, local clinical pathways and other information that is not available through the chat. Where we recommend that you contact or attend your own healthcare service, you should do so promptly.
If advice given through Expert Live Chat appears to differ from your individual care plan or from advice given by a healthcare professional who has examined you or has access to your full records, contact your own healthcare team promptly for clarification.
5. Emergencies, urgent concerns, labour and birth
Do not use Expert Live Chat as an emergency service, urgent maternity triage service, labour service or birth service. The chat is not continuously monitored and a response may not be immediate.
· For a life-threatening or serious emergency in the UK, call 999 or go to the nearest Accident & Emergency department.
· Contact your own midwife or maternity unit immediately if you are worried about yourself or your baby, including concerns about labour, waters breaking, vaginal bleeding, severe or persistent pain, reduced or changed baby movements, breathing difficulty, a seizure, or feeling seriously unwell. This list is not exhaustive.
· For urgent help that is not life-threatening, or if you are unsure what to do, contact NHS 111 or your usual healthcare provider.
· Outside the UK, contact the appropriate local emergency, urgent care or maternity service.
Never wait for an Expert Live Chat response before seeking urgent or emergency care.
6. Your responsibilities when using the Service
To help us provide the Service safely and effectively, you agree to:
· provide information that is accurate, honest and relevant to your question;
· tell the healthcare professional if your symptoms, circumstances or relevant pregnancy information change during the conversation;
· follow any recommendation to seek an in-person assessment, urgent review or emergency care;
· continue to attend appointments and follow your agreed care plan unless your own healthcare team advises otherwise;
· not start, stop or change prescribed medication or treatment unless advised by an appropriately qualified prescriber or healthcare professional who has sufficient information to advise you safely;
· not rely on advice given for another person as though it were advice about you; and
· use the Service only for its intended personal healthcare-support purpose.
7. Acceptable use
You must not:
· use the Service for unlawful, fraudulent, abusive, threatening, harassing or deliberately misleading purposes;
· impersonate another person or deliberately provide false information in order to obtain or manipulate clinical advice;
· attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Service, another user's information, staff accounts, systems or security controls;
· introduce malware, malicious code or content intended to damage, disrupt or compromise the Service;
· scrape, systematically extract or copy the Service or its content using automated means without our written permission;
· use automated systems to make high-volume requests unless we have expressly authorised that use;
· record, publish or distribute private communications involving a healthcare professional in a way that infringes privacy, confidentiality, intellectual property or other legal rights; or
· resell, sublicense or commercially exploit access to the Service unless permitted by a separate written agreement.
We may restrict or suspend access where we reasonably believe this is necessary to protect users, healthcare professionals, the security or integrity of the Service, comply with law, or address a serious or repeated breach of these Terms.
8. Information, messages and uploads you provide
You remain responsible for the information you choose to provide through the Service. You retain any rights you have in your own messages, photographs, documents and other material you submit.
You give us a limited right to host, copy, process, review and retain that material only as reasonably necessary to provide and operate the Service, maintain the clinical and audit record, support clinical governance, protect the Service, comply with legal and regulatory requirements, and otherwise process information as described in the Expert Live Chat Privacy Notice.
You must not upload material that you do not have the right to provide. Where an upload contains another person's information, you should only provide it where this is relevant and you are entitled to do so.
A photograph, document or test result submitted through chat does not replace formal clinical examination, diagnostic testing or interpretation by the healthcare professionals responsible for your care.
9. Anonymised information and service improvement
We may use anonymised or aggregated information to evaluate service quality, understand recurring questions or themes, support clinical governance and improve Expert Live Chat.
Business Customers may receive anonymous and aggregated service analytics and maternal-health trend information. They do not receive identifiable Expert Live Chat transcripts from Epical.
10. Intellectual property
The Expert Live Chat platform configuration, EricaAI branding, documentation, processes, design and other proprietary elements of the Service are owned by Epical Global Ltd or its licensors and are protected by intellectual property law.
You may retain and share advice you receive for your own personal purposes, including sharing it with your healthcare team. This does not give you a right to reproduce, package, resell or commercially exploit the Service or its proprietary materials.
Nothing in these Terms transfers ownership of the personal information or original material you provide to us.
11. Privacy and clinical records
Our Expert Live Chat Privacy Notice explains what personal information we collect, why we use it, our lawful bases, the involvement of our chat-platform provider, how long clinical and other records are retained, international processing, security measures and your data-protection rights.
Where the Service is accessed through a Business Customer's website or platform, the Business Customer may separately process information relating to your use of its own website. It does not receive identifiable Expert Live Chat conversations from Epical; only anonymous and aggregated reporting is provided.
Stopping use of the Service, or ending a Business Customer's integration, does not automatically require deletion of clinical, audit, complaint or other records that we are required or permitted to retain. Retention is governed by the Expert Live Chat Privacy Notice and applicable legal and professional requirements.
12. Availability and changes to the Service
We aim to provide a reliable Service, but we do not promise that it will always be available, uninterrupted or free from technical faults. Maintenance, security events, supplier outages, connectivity failures or other circumstances may affect availability.
We may update or change the Service, professional staffing arrangements, safety controls or technical providers where reasonably necessary to improve safety, comply with law or professional standards, maintain security or improve functionality.
We will not use a Service change to remove rights that you already have under law.
13. Third-party websites and services
The Service may contain links or signposting to third-party websites, NHS services or other organisations. We do not control third-party websites and their own terms and privacy notices will apply when you use them.
Where Expert Live Chat is embedded in a Business Customer's website, Epical is responsible for the Expert Live Chat Service described in these Terms, while the Business Customer remains responsible for its own website, content and services.
14. Our standard of care and your consumer rights
We will provide the Service with reasonable care and skill. Nothing in these Terms removes or reduces any statutory rights that apply to you.
Remote text-based healthcare has inherent limitations, including the inability to conduct a physical examination or access all relevant clinical information. We do not guarantee a particular clinical outcome or that the Service will be suitable for every health concern.
15. Liability
We are responsible for loss or damage that is a reasonably foreseeable result of our breach of these Terms or our failure to use reasonable care and skill.
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability where it would be unlawful to do so, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or any other liability that cannot legally be excluded or restricted.
To the extent permitted by law, we are not responsible for loss or harm caused by circumstances outside our reasonable control, or by your deliberate or material failure to provide relevant and accurate information, your use of the Service outside its stated purpose, or your failure to follow a clear recommendation to seek urgent, emergency or in-person care, except to the extent that our own breach or negligence contributed to the loss or harm.
Because the End User Service is intended for personal use, we are not responsible for business losses, loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption or loss of business opportunity arising from use of the Service.
16. Ending or suspending your use
You may stop using the Service at any time.
We may suspend or end access where reasonably necessary because of misuse, security or safety concerns, legal or regulatory requirements, withdrawal of a Business Customer integration, or discontinuation of the Service.
Ending access does not require us to delete clinical, audit, complaint or other records that we are required or permitted to retain. Retention is governed by the Expert Live Chat Privacy Notice.
17. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms when the Service, law, professional standards, technology or our operating model changes. The effective date at the beginning of the Terms identifies the current version.
Where a change materially affects End Users' rights or the nature of the Service, we will take reasonable steps to bring the updated Terms to users' attention before or when they next use the Service.
18. Complaints and concerns
For a concern about Expert Live Chat, clinical advice or these Terms, contact us at hello@ericaai.co.uk.
A complaint about how we use personal information should be directed to our Data Protection Lead at joanne.parkington@ericaai.co.uk. The Expert Live Chat Privacy Notice explains the data-protection complaints process and your right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.
Where a concern relates to the conduct of an individual regulated healthcare professional, we will handle it through our clinical governance arrangements and, where appropriate, explain any relevant external regulatory route.
19. Governing law and courts
These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. If you are a consumer resident in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you continue to benefit from any mandatory protections available under the law of your home jurisdiction and may bring proceedings in the courts available to you under applicable law.
If you access the Service from outside the United Kingdom, mandatory rights that apply to you under local law are not excluded by these Terms.
20. General
If a court or competent authority finds part of these Terms unlawful or unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue to apply.
A delay by us in enforcing a provision does not mean that we have waived it.
We may transfer our rights and obligations under these Terms as part of a reorganisation, merger, acquisition or transfer of the Expert Live Chat business, provided that this does not reduce your legal rights.
These Terms do not give a third party any right to enforce them, except where the law provides otherwise.
21. Contact
Epical Global Ltd
Company number: 12065790
Registered office: 82A James Carter Rd, Mildenhall, Suffolk, IP28 7DE
General and Service enquiries: hello@ericaai.co.uk
Data Protection Lead: joanne.parkington@ericaai.co.uk