Editorial Policy

Overview

Our editorial policy is in place to guarantee our website’s content is held to the highest possible standards of accuracy, legitimacy and safety.

The Independent Pharmacy’s objective is to provide people who cannot immediately access their GP with trusted professional advice, fast.

Our editorial policy ensures our advice is of the highest quality, it is credible, well-researched, and written by expert medical professionals.

The policy also works to make sure our advice is written in plain English by our qualified medical team and is as balanced and objective as it is well-researched and credible.

We also have a guide on how to make our website more accessible and easy to use.

Authorship

Authors who write information products for The Independent Pharmacy have a detailed knowledge about the topic they are covering.

All of our content is authored by one of our qualified medical professionals. Content is either written by a fully qualified GP or one of our fully qualified pharmacists, then the content is checked and reviewed by a GP before publication.

Authors must also be able to write clearly and in plain language.

Peer Review and Accountability

We are committed to continually reviewing and improving our information and advice to make sure it is up-to-date, accurate and helpful.

We have reminders in place to trigger annual reviews of our content, this review will take place by a qualified medical practitioner, to ensure it is still accurate and contains the latest advice.

If a piece of content needs revising, it will be updated by one of our GPs or pharmacists and then a reminder will be set for review in a maximum of 24 months’ time.

Editorial Values

Trust and Accuracy

The Independent Pharmacy is committed to achieving the highest standards of accuracy and impartiality.

Our website content is based on sound medical reasoning from qualified and experienced medical professionals to ensure accuracy as well as credibility.

Tone and Transparency

We pride ourselves on our editorial tone being informative yet easy to understand. We write in plain English to best serve the interests of the user and do not use ‘salesy’ language.

Editorial Integrity and Independence

Our on-staff GPs and pharmacists always offer objective medical advice that is in the interest of the user or the patient. The products we offer are recommended with complete impartiality and no incentivisation.

We are an independent company and work outside any interests and arrangements that could undermine our editorial integrity. Our users should be confident that our decisions are not influenced by outside interests, political or commercial pressures, or any personal interests.

References

Our information is accurate, balanced and targeted to our audiences. All articles will have sources referenced where possible, typically linking out to the source within the article and adding a sources section at the end if necessary.

We only use independent, trusted sources.

Corrections and User Feedback

The Independent Pharmacy will publish corrections to, or retractions of, articles published on its website, if:

• There is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error).
• The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication).
• It constitutes plagiarism.
• It reports unethical research.

If you have an issue with any of the advice pieces you have read on The Independent Pharmacy’s website and would like to discuss, please contact Andy Boysan by emailing [email protected].