Editorial

Health information you can trust

We believe everyone deserves clear, accurate, and reliable health information — especially when it’s hard to know who or what to trust online.

That’s why our apps follow a transparent, evidence-informed editorial process. Every word is carefully crafted, reviewed, and checked by health professionals and subject matter experts — so people can make confident decisions about their health and wellbeing.

Project teams

Every app we create is the result of a handpicked team — assembled to bring the right mix of expertise, insight and lived experience.

Depending on the project, our teams typically include 10 to 50 contributors and work with 3 to 10 partner organisations. Together, we shape apps that reflect the needs and voices of the communities they serve.

Our teams include:

  • Project Lead and Clinical Safety Officer — Dr Knut Schroeder
  • Citizens — people with lived experience, public contributors, patients and carers
  • Health and topic experts — NHS professionals, researchers, and local or national specialists
  • Partner organisations — including NHS bodies, universities, councils, charities, social enterprises and trusted private partners

We ask people involved in creating app content to declare any conflicts of interest.

Our editorial promise

We create content that is:

  • Accurate — based on the best available evidence
  • Clear — written in plain English and easy to understand
  • Reliable — informed by real-world experience and expert review

All content is reviewed by qualified health professionals and topic specialists before launch — and again whenever we make major updates.

Certified for quality

Expert Self Care is proud to hold the PIF TICK — the UK's only independently assessed quality mark for trustworthy health information.

This means our editorial work follows a recognised, 10-point standard of excellence:

  1. Process — Our editorial process is clear, consistent, and documented.
  2. Training — Our team is trained and supported to create high-quality content.
  3. Need — We create content based on user need and real-world gaps.
  4. Evidence — We use up-to-date, reliable evidence wherever possible.
  5. User involvement — We co-create with users and lived experience experts.
  6. Plain language — We write in clear, accessible English.
  7. Ease of use — Our content is easy to navigate on mobile.
  8. Feedback — We welcome comments and learn from what people tell us.
  9. Promotion — We promote information to reach as many users as possible.
  10. Impact — We measure uptake and how our content helps people.

Our writing aims

We aim to be:

  • Accurate — We base content on the best available evidence. Where knowledge is limited, we say so.
  • Impartial — We present different views fairly and avoid bias.
  • Accountable — We take responsibility for our content. If something's not right, we fix it.
  • Respectful — We avoid anything that could reasonably cause offence. All content is suitable for a general audience.
  • Private — We never disclose personal data without explicit permission. See our Privacy Policy for details.

We are open about how we’re funded. Our apps may be supported by customisation licenses, commissions, grants, or sponsorships — but our editorial decisions are independent. Where any conflicts of interest exist, we declare them clearly.

Our writing process

We develop content in carefully managed, iterative cycles. Here’s how it works:

  1. Research. We start with the latest evidence — using peer-reviewed research, NHS guidance, NICE Clinical Knowledge Summaries, specialist journals, and input from lived experience experts.
  2. Content creation. Our senior editorial team drafts and refines the text using a consistent style guide. We collaborate closely with reviewers, clinicians, and partner organisations to make sure the content is accurate, accessible, and relevant.
  3. Review and sign-off. All content is reviewed internally and externally, and signed off by our Clinical Editor and Clinical Safety Officer. Where needed, we consult additional external specialists.
  4. Final checks. Before publishing, we check for grammar, spelling, style, clarity, tone, and presentation.
  5. Ongoing review. We review all content at least every three years — more frequently when topics are subject to changes in evidence.

If content is still in development, we make that clear when sharing drafts with audiences for testing and feedback.

Our AI policy

We believe in being transparent about how we create our content — including when and how we use artificial intelligence (AI).

At Expert Self Care, we may use AI tools to support our editorial process. For example, we sometimes use AI to:

  • Help draft or rephrase content for clarity and tone
  • Explore different ways to structure or present information
  • Support quality checks for spelling, grammar and readability

But AI is never the final voice. All content is carefully reviewed, edited and approved by qualified health professionals and experienced editors before it’s published. We do not publish any content generated solely by AI without human oversight and clinical review.

Our priority is always to ensure that the information we provide is accurate, clear, evidence-informed and trustworthy.

Listening, learning, improving.

We welcome and encourage feedback on all our content.

  • In-app feedback — Each app includes a feedback button linked to an anonymous form
  • Email and contact forms — We provide clear contact details within each app
  • Complaints — If something’s wrong, we take it seriously. Complaints are handled at senior editorial level.

We log all feedback, review it regularly, and act on it. Every year, we audit our feedback process and can share the findings on request.

Want to know more?

If you have a question about how we create or review content — or would like to share your thoughts — we’d love to hear from you.

 

Contact us