How we review our content

Who writes our content?

Articles are written by the HealthAnswers editorial team in plain English from the sources listed on each page. The byline shows the author and review status. Where a practical guide is drafted with AI assistance, this is disclosed. 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.

Health information can affect important decisions. Reading a guide or checking its sources cannot replace advice from a health professional who knows your circumstances.

Who medically reviews each article?

Where a named doctor from our panel is recorded as having medically reviewed an article, their name, qualifications and GMC reference number are shown on the page. The General Medical Council register verifies professional registration; it does not certify that a particular website article was reviewed.

Some existing articles carry a recorded UK doctor review panel byline without an individual reviewer named. The coverage counts above report those existing records; they are not an independent verification of clinical sign-off. A substantially rewritten article needs a fresh clinical review before an older review claim can be applied to that version.

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.

Practical guides and AI assistance

Practical editorial guides help with service navigation, appointment preparation and checking information. They are labelled separately from medical articles. A “Sources checked” date records consultation of the linked public sources; it does not mean that a doctor has reviewed or approved the guide.

Guides updated with AI assistance disclose this beside the byline. This includes practical appointment guides and articles whose source-based corrections have not had a new clinical review. Their bylines state that medical review is not recorded. They do not assess symptoms, select treatments or claim first-hand clinical experience. Follow the linked NHS guidance and your healthcare professional for individual care.

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. Dates distinguish publication, clinical review and editorial source checks. A design or navigation change does not count as a fresh medical review.

How should you use this information?

HealthAnswers is an information service, not a clinic. Our pages explain ways to seek help, including: see a GP, use a pharmacist, use an NHS urgent-care service, or call 999 in an emergency. 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 should carry a visible disclosure and be identified as sponsored in the link markup. 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. Benefits and harms should reflect the cited evidence, regardless of any commercial relationship.

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. Medical review dates should record a completed clinical review. Editorial source checks have their own date. We do not advance clinical review dates simply because we rebuild the website or change its design.

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. Our public guides remain available to search engines. Permission to appear in search is separate from permission to train AI models.

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.