Editorial policy
How we review our content
Trustworthy health information depends on a clear, honest process. Here is exactly how content on HealthAnswers is written, checked and kept current.
- Every article is medically reviewed by either a named GMC-registered UK doctor or our UK doctor review panel, and identifies the reviewer on-page.
- Articles are reviewed against NHS, NICE and other authoritative guidance, and every page shows its sources and last-reviewed date.
- Sources: the NHS website, NICE guidelines and reputable primary references, listed at the foot of each article.
Who writes our content?
Articles are written by the HealthAnswers editorial team in plain English from the sources listed on each page, then checked by registered UK doctors. The byline names the editorial team as the author because that is who drafted the page. We do not present a brand as a doctor, and we do not invent a named clinician for pages a named clinician has not personally reviewed.
This is a YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) publisher. The people who write are editors, not a substitute for your GP. The people who review are GMC-registered UK doctors. That split is deliberate: it keeps the medical claim honest.
Who medically reviews each article?
Every published article is medically reviewed before it goes live. Where a named doctor from our panel has reviewed an article in their specialty, their name, qualifications and GMC reference number are shown on the page and can be verified on the General Medical Council register. Those profile pages are the canonical Person records for schema.org markup.
Everything else is reviewed by our UK doctor review panel — registered UK doctors who check clinical accuracy against NHS and NICE guidance. These pages show “Medically reviewed by the HealthAnswers UK doctor review panel” on the byline, without an individual name attached. We are expanding named, specialty-matched review across the site over time; collectively reviewed articles retain the panel byline unless a specific doctor is assigned.
A review claim we cannot evidence is worse than none. Pages that have not yet been reviewed do not carry a reviewedBy claim in structured data.
What sources do we use?
We aim to reflect guidance from trusted bodies such as the NHS website and NICE, and to cite reputable primary sources. Where evidence is uncertain or changing, we say so rather than overstate it. We do not scrape forums or rewrite competitor pages. We do not invent prevalence figures, waiting times, prices or medicine doses. “We do not know” is publishable; a fabricated number is a defect.
Each article lists its sources at the foot of the page, with a link to the operator’s own material. The visible “last reviewed” date and the sitemap lastmod for that URL are derived from the same reviewed (or published) date so the two cannot disagree.
How do we reach a verdict?
HealthAnswers is an information service, not a clinic. The “verdict” on a page is the practical next step a reader in the UK can take: see a GP, use a pharmacist, call NHS 111, call 999, or safely self-care. Every article also states who should skip it — usually anyone who needs a diagnosis, a prescription or emergency care. We would rather send someone to 999 than keep them reading.
We do not rank treatments for sale. We do not mark supplier scores up as
review stars in structured data. Where we mention an external app or directory, paid links carry
a visible disclosure and rel="sponsored nofollow noopener". The
free NHS option is named when it is the right first step, even if that means we
earn nothing.
What money cannot buy
Payment does not buy a higher ranking, a softer safety warning, or a medical review. A partner cannot pay to be described as “NHS recommended” unless that is what the cited NHS page actually says. Reviewers retain a veto: if a draft overstates benefit or understates harm, it does not publish.
Dr Neil Singh is the founder of brightloaf. Where brightloaf is mentioned on HealthAnswers — currently the anxiety article and his reviewer profile — that interest is declared and HealthAnswers retains editorial control over the health information. The disclosure is also on his reviewer profile. We do not repeat sponsored mental-health CTAs across the rest of the site.
How often is content updated?
Health guidance changes. We review content periodically and after major NHS or NICE updates. Every article shows its last-reviewed date. We update that date only when the content actually changed — a lastmod that lies is worse than one that is old, because it destroys crawl prioritisation.
Interactive tools on this site are client-side helpers with a static HTML fallback. They do not diagnose. If a tool cannot run without JavaScript, the underlying advice remains readable on the page.
What triggers a correction?
A correction is triggered when a page states something that is factually wrong, out of date against the cited source, or dangerously incomplete (for example a missing 999 warning). Typos that do not change meaning are silent edits. Clinical errors are dated on the public corrections log.
If you spot something that looks wrong, email [email protected] with the URL and a short description. We review corrections as a priority. Named reviewers are asked to re-check clinical corrections in their specialty.
What we will not publish
We will not publish personal medical advice, treatment plans, or “you have X” conclusions from a symptom list. We will not publish doses for readers to self-prescribe. We will not use years in URLs that make every page stale each January. We will not block reputable AI crawlers in robots.txt while asking to be cited in answer engines.
We will not pretend first-hand clinical experience we do not have. Desk-reviewed information, sourced and dated, is the honest product.
How this page relates to NHS care
HealthAnswers does not provide NHS services. When this site and NHS advice appear to differ, follow NHS advice and your clinician. Our job is to make the public guidance easier to use, not to replace it.