Editorial Policy

This page describes a process, not a set of credentials. The credentials are on the contributor pages; what matters more is what actually happens to a number between somebody reading a study and you reading a sentence.

How a number gets onto this site

1. It is needed. Nothing quantitative is added for decoration. A figure earns its place only where a reader has to make a decision without it, such as how long to persist with a programme before concluding it has not worked.

2. The source is chosen before the number is. We go to the guideline or the systematic review first and take what it says, rather than searching for a figure that suits the sentence already written. The bodies we treat as authoritative are named below.

3. The figure is written down with its population and its comparison. A percentage on its own is close to meaningless. Every entry records what was measured, in whom, against what, and in which year, because “eight times more likely to report cure” means nothing until you know cure of what, compared with which group, and in which trials.

4. It goes into the canonical facts file. The site keeps one internal document holding every figure it uses. No number appears in an article that is not in that file first. This is why the same statistic reads identically across the site rather than drifting a little each time it is retold.

5. It is written into the article with a reference. Each figure carries the source title in the reference list at the foot of the article, so you can go and read the thing itself.

6. A specialist pelvic health physiotherapist checks the numbers against the sources. Bethan Rowsell reads every article before publication. Her review has three specific jobs: confirming that exercise doses match what NICE and the Cochrane reviews actually recommend for the population in question, confirming the red flags appear before the advice rather than after it, and removing any sentence implying a programme can be started without an assessment.

7. It is dated. Every article shows when it was published, when it was last revised, and when it was reviewed. All three are real dates.

What we treat as authoritative

Clinical guidelines from NICE, the European Association of Urology and the World Health Organization. Systematic reviews from the Cochrane Library. Standardisation and patient information from the International Continence Society and the International Urogynecological Association. Professional guidance and service data from the NHS, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and the physiotherapy bodies listed on the registers page. Where a figure comes from a single trial rather than a review, the trial is named.

Clinic marketing pages, device manufacturers, supplement sellers and social media are not sources and are never cited, whatever they claim.

What we deliberately will not publish

Individual advice, in any form. Instructions for anything that belongs in an examination room, including internal self-examination technique and dilator protocols. Medication guidance of any kind. Named clinicians, clinics or practices, whether praised or complained about. And any framing that treats a symptom as something to manage at home before it has been assessed.

Corrections

Errors get fixed rather than quietly edited away. Tell us through the contact page, with the article title and the specific sentence. Anything factually wrong is corrected as soon as we have checked it. Where a correction changes the meaning of a recommendation, the article carries a dated note saying what changed, and it goes back through review before it reappears.

Re-review

Guidelines change, costs change, and helpline numbers change. Articles are re-checked on a rolling basis, and any article whose underlying guideline has been updated is rewritten rather than patched. A revised date on an article always means the content moved, never that a script touched the file.

Independence

Nobody pays to appear here. There is no advertising, no sponsored content, no affiliate relationship with any device, app, clinic or practitioner, and no commercial arrangement of any kind at the time of writing. If that ever changes, it will be stated plainly on the page it affects rather than in a line at the bottom of this one.