🧾 EDITORIAL STANDARDS & ETHICS
How Patient Trust Score™ Maintains Independence and Integrity
1️⃣ Our Editorial Mission
Patient Trust Score™ exists to help patients make informed healthcare decisions by presenting clear, balanced, and evidence-based summaries of patient experiences.
Our editorial mission is guided by three principles:
- Accuracy — reflecting publicly available patient feedback faithfully
- Neutrality — avoiding promotion, exaggeration, or judgment
- Transparency — clearly explaining how information is collected and summarised
We are not a marketing platform, a ranking service, or a hospital directory for advertising.
2️⃣ Editorial Independence
Patient Trust Score™ operates independently of hospitals, clinics, and healthcare providers.
- Hospitals do not influence editorial conclusions
- No hospital can pay to improve, suppress, or remove a review
- Editorial decisions are made without commercial consideration
This independence ensures that patient experience patterns are presented as they appear, not as they are promoted.
3️⃣ Data Integrity & Sources
All editorial content is based on publicly accessible information, including:
- Verified Google patient reviews
- Review volume and consistency patterns
- Public hospital information (location, services, structure)
We do not publish:
- Private medical data
- Confidential patient records
- Personal health information
4️⃣ How Reviews Are Summarised
Individual patient reviews can be subjective. For this reason, Patient Trust Score™ does not highlight isolated opinions.
Instead, our editorial process focuses on:
- Recurring themes across multiple reviews
- Frequently mentioned strengths
- Commonly reported challenges
- Patterns that appear consistently over time
Summaries are written in clear, non-promotional language and reflect both positive and critical themes where available.
5️⃣ Balanced Representation
Every hospital review aims to present a balanced view.
This means:
- Highlighting what patients frequently praise
- Acknowledging areas patients commonly mention as challenges
- Avoiding overly positive or negative framing
If limited or inconsistent feedback exists, this is stated transparently.
6️⃣ Review Confidence, Not Judgement
Patient Trust Score™ does not label hospitals as “good” or “bad.”
Hospitals are grouped by review confidence, which reflects the availability and consistency of public patient feedback, not clinical quality or outcomes.
Review confidence categories are informational and descriptive, not evaluative.
7️⃣ No Rankings or Competitive Claims
Patient Trust Score™ does not rank hospitals from best to worst.
- There are no “Top 10” lists
- There are no league tables
- There are no competitive comparisons
Hospitals are presented to help patients understand context, not competition.
8️⃣ Advertising & Commercial Policy
Patient Trust Score™ maintains a strict separation between editorial content and any commercial elements.
- Editorial conclusions are never sponsored
- Hospitals cannot purchase improved placement
- Commercial partnerships do not affect review outcomes
If any non-editorial content appears on the platform, it is clearly separated and labelled.
9️⃣ Corrections & Updates
We recognise that public information can change.
Hospitals or users may request corrections to:
- Factual inaccuracies (e.g. address, website link)
- Outdated public information
All correction requests are reviewed editorially.
Editorial summaries are updated only when supported by verifiable public data.
🔒 Ethical Commitment
Patient Trust Score™ is committed to:
- Responsible use of public data
- Respectful representation of healthcare institutions
- Clear distinction between patient experience and medical outcomes
- Continuous improvement of editorial practices
We aim to support patient understanding, not controversy.
📘 Relationship to Our Methodology
This editorial policy works alongside our formal methodology.
📘 Read how Patient Trust Score™ works →
Together, these documents explain what we analyse, how we summarise, and what we intentionally do not assess.
📅 Last Updated
Last updated: December 2025
