Editorial policy

This page sets out what MedicWatch publishes, what it does not, how it labels outcomes, how often the record is updated, and how to request a correction. It should be read alongside our sources and methodology page, which covers where the underlying data comes from in more detail.

What we publish

MedicWatch publishes two kinds of page for each practitioner:

• Determinations — publicly published tribunal and hearing outcomes from the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS, for doctors), the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), and the Dental Professionals Hearings Service (DPHS, for dentists and dental care professionals, referred by the General Dental Council).
• Register data— current registration status drawn from the regulators’ own public registers (GMC, NMC, GDC), used to answer whether a practitioner is currently registered and to provide context where no determination exists.

What we don’t publish

• Unproven allegations, complaints, or concerns that have not led to a published regulatory decision.
• Material sourced from anywhere other than a regulator’s own published determination or register entry — we do not publish reader submissions, reviews, or third-party commentary about a practitioner.
• Ratings, scores, or risk numbers. MedicWatch reports what a regulator decided; it does not aggregate decisions into a judgement of its own. See our faithfulness rules.

Official terms and plain-English labels

Regulators use formal terms for their outcomes — for example erasure, suspension, or conditions of practice. Many people search using everyday language instead — “struck off”, “suspended”. Where MedicWatch states an outcome, it shows the regulator’s own official term together with the plain-English label, so the two can always be matched against each other. Determination pages lead with the official term; page titles and search-result summaries use the plain-English label, because that is what people search for.

For a fuller glossary of terms, see types of sanctions explained and what does “struck off” mean?.

How often the record is updated

MedicWatchis not updated continuously. The record is refreshed in periodic review runs, and new determinations are added after each run. Every practitioner and determination page shows the date its data was last checked (or, where no explicit re-check has run yet, the date the page was added), so you can judge how current the information is before relying on it. The authoritative, always-current source for a practitioner’s registration status remains the regulator’s own register, which every profile links to directly.

Editorial responsibility

Publisher and editor: Ben Bleier. Editorial decisions — what to publish, what to remove, and how to describe it — are made in line with the policies on this page and on our sources and methodology page.

Corrections

If you believe a page is factually wrong, out of date, or should not be published, see our corrections and takedowns page, or go straight to the submission form.