Reviews policy

You can review and rate almost any NHS service on the NHS website, including hospitals, GP practices and dentists. We welcome feedback, whether you, a friend or a family member were a patient, a customer or just visiting.

All reviews submitted are moderated to check they do not break our rules before being published.

We use artificial intelligence (AI)

Every review is checked by an artificial intelligence (AI) tool, to make sure it meets our reviews policy. The AI tool checks for:

• formal complaints - reviews which suggest or make a formal complaint, or a serious accusation that should be handled as a formal complaint
• anything that identifies another person - reviews where a person names someone else, or mentions something recognisable about them (but the reviewer may use their own name)
• information about a specific experience with a healthcare provider - reviews must not be a general view on the provider or the NHS
• safeguarding concerns - for example, reviews that mention suicidal thoughts or self-harm

How reviews work

You will need to keep your contributions constructive, relevant and civil. Our rules and guidelines are to protect you and the NHS. Reviews will not be published if they break the rules.

If you would like to challenge a moderation decision, email the NHS website service desk on nhswebsite.servicedesk@nhs.net.

You can leave an anonymous review. You should respect the anonymity of other patients and staff at the service you are reviewing by not mentioning their names or anything that may identify them.

The "Leave a review" feature available on many NHS service provider profiles on the NHS website allows you to review the service you received, or the service you witnessed a friend or a family member receiving. This is not a formal complaint procedure. Find out how to complain to the NHS.

NHS trusts and the service providers are not obliged to read or respond to reviews, though many do. If you want a reply to your feedback you should contact the provider of the NHS service directly or alternatively contact the commissioner of the service, such as NHS England or your local integrated care board (ICB)..

You can leave a review for NHS or private healthcare if the service provider offers both NHS and private treatment on their premises.

You can leave a review about any aspect of your experience using an NHS service. This includes feedback on your medical care and clinical staff, as well as on the wider NHS environment, service and supporting staff you encountered.

Feedback should be made within the "Leave a review" area of the NHS service provider profile page. This area is not suitable for making general political points about NHS services. Feedback from members of staff will not be accepted. Service providers may promote the ratings and reviews service and encourage you to leave reviews.  If service providers are promoting the ratings and review service they must do so equally and openly and must not ask about the content of your review, make any aspect of your care conditional upon you giving a review (or the content of it) or solicit only positive reviews. Service providers must not post reviews on behalf of patients, their friends or family members.

Ratings and reviews must be about events within the past 2 years. Once the event described in a review we've published is more than 2 years old, it is removed from the service's profile, along with any associated ratings and personal information.

If you think someone's contribution to the website breaks our rules you can alert one of our moderators by selecting the "Report as unsuitable" link directly beneath the review. Reporting a review will not delete it but will temporarily remove it and ensure we look at it as soon as possible. The moderators will then decide whether to remove it permanently or reinstate it.

The NHS website does not remove reviews in situations where organisations and reviewers disagree about the facts disclosed in a review. Our policy is to be impartial and it is not possible to determine what happened or who is right about the reviewer's experience.

Relevance: reviews must be relevant to the experience of care with the associated provider. When reviewing a particular service provider, you should ensure your review only references that provider. If your experience involves other service providers, you should leave a review on each provider detailing their part in the experience.

You may reference other service providers within your review for feedback context, however, you should not name them.

Be civil: please ensure that your contributions are respectful of others. We will remove contributions that are unlawful, harassing, abusive, threatening, obscene, sexually suggestive, racist, homophobic or sexist, or that incite or promote hatred of any group or individual. Reviews that contain swearing will not be published.

Writing in capitals: do not overuse capital letters – on the internet this can be regarded as "shouting" and people may find it offensive.

Be informative: ensure your review has enough information to describe your experience, and if you're reviewing a hospital, GP practice, dental practice or community NHS service, provide enough information to assist someone else in making decisions about the service. Reviews deemed uninformative will not be published.

English: all reviews on the website must be made in English. Reviews in other languages will not be published.

Stereotypes: reviews that stereotype sections of society will not be published.

Multiple posts: duplicate reviews or repeats will not be published. Users should only post one review per experience.

Use of emojis: do not submit any reviews containing emojis. There's a risk they could be misinterpreted by other users of the site.

Complaint investigations: reviews mentioning or describing an investigation into a complaint with an NHS service will not be published. This includes past, current and future investigations.

Moderation decisions: comments about a previous decision not to publish a review will not be published. Reviews must only describe a person's experience of using an NHS service.

Your review can be about any experience you had in the building that you visited. For example, a physiotherapist you visit may be renting a room at a GP surgery. In this case you would review them on the GP surgery page.

For the NHS website to publish your review you will need to provide a valid email address where we can contact you. When you submit your review, we will also see your IP address. These details are kept confidential and will be used by NHS staff and the moderation service provider to process your submission. The NHS website uses your email address to contact you:

• to let you know your review has been published, or if it has breached this policy
• if we need to clarify an aspect of your review
• if your review gives us cause for concern about your wellbeing or that of someone else. We may send you information about how to access appropriate support

The NHS website will only use your details for the purposes of dealing with your enquiry, training, quality monitoring or evaluating the services we provide. We will not pass on your details to anyone else without your express permission except in exceptional circumstances including a safety risk to individuals. Examples of this might include anyone reporting serious self-harm or posing a threat to others, or children contacting us and sharing serious issues.

We do not publish reviews on the NHS website that state someone is intending to self-harm or end their life. We also do not publish reviews that describe methods of self-harm or suicide because this information could be harmful to others. Go to your nearest A&E if you're feeling suicidal or thinking about self-harming.

Whether you are speaking for yourself, a friend or a family member, do not name the individuals you are talking about. If you're leaving a review on another person's behalf, it is best to talk of "my husband" or "my uncle" and so on to help protect their privacy.

Personal information

To help protect your privacy, any information you contribute that reveals personal information, such as names, phone numbers, email addresses, Twitter handles, addresses and so on will be removed. Any posts attempting to use the site to exchange personal information or arrange meetings with another user will not be published.

The personal information you share will be held by us for up to 2 years so that we can get in touch with you about what you have written and so you can contact us to change or remove your review. When we remove the review from our site due to the events occurring over 2 years ago, we also remove all the personal information we hold in connection with it.

When you write a review and wish to remain anonymous we will not publish your personal details on the website or pass them to the organisation you are reviewing, except in the exceptional circumstances described above. You should be aware your reviews may allow the provider to guess who you are even when you post anonymously. We do not allow the provider to reveal your identity in any response they submit for publication on this website.

Names used on the NHS website are moderated. When selecting a name to be displayed on the website make sure you choose one that is not rude, offensive or aimed at impersonating another person.

Naming businesses: please avoid naming businesses or commercial services in your review. Any reviews breaching this rule will not be published.

Under-16s: if you're under 16 ensure you have permission from a parent or guardian before posting on the NHS website.

Reviews that glamourise smoking, drug use or drinking, or that promote a poor moral example will be removed.

Asking for and giving specific medical or health advice is not permitted.

Reviews deemed to be advertising a product or service will not be published.

We may remove reviews that reference specific medical products or medicines if the context is not appropriate.

Irrespective of their contents, we will not publish any reviews if we know or reasonably suspect they have been made following financial or any other inducement; by service providers or members of staff; or subject to undue influence from service providers.

Current court cases and court injunctions: contempt of court rules mean you cannot leave reviews that could prejudice the outcome of a court case or General Medical Council hearing. Reviews about something that subsequently becomes the subject of a court case or hearing will also be removed if they risk being in contempt of court. Contributions that break a court injunction will be removed.

Clinical negligence or criminal activity: reviews that give an account of clinical negligence will not be published. If you have an allegation of clinical negligence please use the NHS complaints procedure. Accusations of criminal activity will not be published. If you believe that criminal activity is or has taken place at an organisation please contact the police or the organisation directly.

Defamation: defamation is a complex area. Defamation may occur when someone makes a statement that causes serious harm to a person's reputation. The law allows you to post reviews containing your honestly held opinion, provided you identify the facts on which you are expressing your opinion. Posting untrue statements is against the law if they cause serious harm to a person's reputation or are likely to do so. We remove reviews where we judge there is not a lawful basis for their publication.

Disclaimer: this definition is not to be regarded as a statement of the law nor should it be relied upon to make any judgement as to whether content is potentially defamatory. It is up to you to decide whether to take specific legal advice.

Threats: reviews containing threats of public fear, terrorism or threats towards any individual are not permitted and may be reported to the police.

Copyright: ensure that you own the copyright to any material you put on the site – especially if you have copied it from another source. If we're in doubt about the ownership of content we will remove it from the site.

Copyright of your contributions

Your contributions to the NHS website are published to the general public. In submitting your reviews you assign all rights to the NHS website for use and publication of your contribution (further information can be found in terms and conditions). If you're unwilling to grant the NHS website copyright to your contribution you should not submit it to the site.

Action we may take

A breach of any of our rules can lead to your review being rejected. Repeated or serious breaches of our rules may lead to the NHS website blocking contributions from your email address or suspending your NHS website account. The NHS website reserves the right to delete any content at any time for any reason and is under no obligation to publish any contributions. The NHS website reserves the right to alter or update the house rules or terms and conditions at any time.