Review policy

The short version

• Reviews must come from real patients describing their own experience.
• We do not publish fake reviews, and we do not publish reviews written in return for money, a discount, a gift or any other reward.
• A person reads every review before it goes live.
• No clinic can pay to have a review removed, hidden or moved, and none can pay to improve its rating.
• Negative reviews are published on the same terms as positive ones.

Who can write a review

• Anyone who has been a patient at the clinic, or attended a consultation there, using a free Rated Clinics account with a confirmed email address.
• One review per patient per clinic. You can edit it for 24 hours after posting, and you can delete it at any time.
• Clinic accounts cannot write reviews at all. Owners, staff, practitioners, their relatives and anyone paid by the clinic must not review it, or review a competitor, from a personal account either.
• You must write about your own experience. Reviews on behalf of someone else, or based on what you have heard, are not accepted.

How we check reviews

Every review is held for moderation and read by a member of our team before it is published, usually within 24 hours. We look at the account, the review itself and its history against the clinic. We may ask the reviewer for evidence that they were treated, and we may decline to publish a review until we have it.

You can attach a receipt, booking confirmation or appointment letter when you write a review. It is used only to check the visit, it is never published, and a review backed by one shows a "Verified visit" badge. Clinics that invite their own patients to review do not decide which reviews are published, and an invitation does not make a review verified.

What we will not publish, or will remove

• Fake reviews, or reviews by anyone connected to the clinic or to a competitor.
• Reviews given in exchange for any payment, discount, free treatment, gift, prize draw entry or other reward, whoever offered it.
• Reviews written or edited by the clinic, or by anyone else on the patient's behalf.
• Several reviews of the same clinic from one person, or from accounts we believe are controlled by one person.
• Personal medical details of anyone other than the reviewer, and anything that identifies another patient.
• Abuse, threats, discrimination, or claims that a named person has committed a crime.
• Adverts, links, contact details and promotion of another business.
• Reviews about a different clinic, or not about a patient experience at all.

If we remove a review that was published, it no longer counts towards the clinic's rating.

Rules for clinics

• Clinics may ask their patients for honest reviews, including through our invitation tool. They must ask every patient on the same terms and must not ask only those they expect to be happy.
• Clinics must not offer anything in return for a review, and must not suggest what a review should say.
• Clinics can reply publicly to any review. Replies must not reveal anything about the patient's treatment that the patient has not already shared, and they are moderated like reviews.
• A clinic that disagrees with a review can report it to us. We remove a review only if it breaks this policy, never because a clinic dislikes it.

If we find a clinic writing, buying or rewarding reviews, we remove the affected reviews, may suspend its listing, and may show a notice on its page explaining why.

How ratings are calculated

A clinic's star rating is the average of its approved reviews on Rated Clinics. Reviews that are pending, rejected or removed are not counted. The Trust Score is calculated separately from the clinic's record; how it works is set out on our Trust Score page. Neither can be bought.

Report a review

If you think a review is fake, paid for, or breaks this policy in another way, tell us through contact support with a link to the clinic and the reason. We look at every report, may hide a review while we check it, and will tell you the outcome. If your own review was not published or was removed, you can ask us why the same way, and we will tell you which part of this policy applied.

The law behind this

Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, publishing fake reviews, or reviews with a hidden incentive, is banned in the UK, and review publishers must take reasonable steps to prevent and remove them. This policy is how we meet that duty. We review it at least once a year and whenever guidance from the Competition and Markets Authority changes.