Medical Review Policy
Most pages on this site help you understand access to care — where departments sit, how appointments work, what things cost. That is different from telling you what treatment is right for you, which we never do. This page explains the difference and how we label it.
Two kinds of content
| Access and logistics content | Clinical content | |
|---|---|---|
| What it covers | Departments, campuses, international departments, appointment routes, documents to prepare, indicative prices, what care in China involves | What a condition is, how it is diagnosed or treated, what an outcome means |
| Reviewed by | Editor, against published sources | Editor, plus a qualified clinician where we say one reviewed it |
| Where you find it | Hospital profiles, check-up package pages, most condition guides | Research summaries and the clinical sections of condition guides |
| Labelled | Information only — not medically reviewed | Names the reviewer and the review date, or says no clinical review has taken place yet |
What “medically reviewed” means here
When a page carries a clinical review line, it means a licensed clinician read the page, checked its clinical statements against the cited sources, and confirmed that the statements are accurately reported and not misleading. It does not mean:
- that the reviewer endorses any hospital, doctor or treatment;
- that a treatment described on the page is suitable for you; or
- that the reviewer has taken responsibility for your care.
Current status — read this before relying on a clinical detail
We would rather publish that plainly than imply a level of assurance we have not put in place. Our clinical review programme is being rolled out condition by condition, starting with the care areas international patients ask about most. A page that has been reviewed says so, and links back here.
Research summaries have specific limits
Our Resources summaries describe studies published by hospitals and journals. A summary reports what a study found; it is not a recommendation, and it does not mean the approach is available to you.
- Early-phase and single-centre results often do not hold up in larger trials. We say where in the research process a result sits.
- A treatment reported at one hospital is not necessarily offered there to international patients, or offered outside a trial.
- An English summary is shorter than the source paper. If a decision depends on it, read the original.
How we choose reviewers
Reviewers are licensed clinicians with relevant specialty experience. They are asked to read against the source rather than from memory, and to tell us when they think we have overstated a result — including when the source is their own institution.
We do not publish review credentials we cannot substantiate, and we do not list reviewers who have not confirmed they are willing to be named.
Raising a clinical concern
If you believe a page contains a clinical statement that is wrong, unsafe or overstated, email [email protected] with the page address and the sentence you are concerned about. We treat these as priority, take the page down or mark it while we check, and tell you what we found.
For anything about your own health, please speak to a clinician who has seen your records. Nothing here can replace that.