What is our goal?
To provide patients with direct access to specialists along with their wealth of experience and knowledge. The authors of the articles are all medical consultants who are internationally recognised as leaders in their field. Our content is all consultant-led and our team has accumulated many years of experience working with senior doctors and therefore have an excellent working knowledge of bridging the traditional divisions between healthcare professionals and patients.
What type of information will I find here?
For each therapeutic area an acknowledged specialist explains the latest philosophies and treatment options in plain English. Each article contains need-to-know information which would usually only be shared between healthcare professionals. totalhealth's mission is to extend the educational remit of senior doctors, traditionally limited to other healthcare professionals, to include the patient!
Can I find this information anywhere else on the web?
The articles you'll find here were written exclusively for TotalHealth, which means in all cases this is where they first appeared. Following publication we distribute press releases to media outlets and journalists. In addition we also circulate copies of the article to our doctor database of consultants and GPs as well as other healthcare professionals and subscribed readers.
Advertising Policy
We do not allow any advertising, banners, pop-ups or other irritating gizmos to appear on the site. All editorials are invitation. TotalHealth specialises in providing expert-led, authoritative medical education. Some articles are promoted via medical inbound marketing and sponsored with links and some are not.
Compliance with ABPI Code of Practice and HONcode accreditation
It is inevitable that in some cases drugs will be mentioned in the articles. In these instances, and if there is pharmaceutical company involvement, totalhealth will always comply with UK guidelines. These guidelines are regulated by the Association of British Pharmaceutical Companies (ABPI). There is good communication for all articles between totalhealth and the ABPI when sponsorship is involved. totalhealth believe that it is important to maintain excellent standards of conduct.
What is the Code of Practice?
The ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry covers the promotion of medicines for prescribing to health professionals and the provision of information to the public about prescription only medicines. The Code also sets standards relating to the provision of information to patients and the public.
Joint working and the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry
The ABPI has recently issued guidance notes on joint working between pharmaceutical companies and others for the benefit of patients. Whilst joint working must be for the benefit of patients it is expected that the arrangements will also benefit the NHS and the pharmaceutical company or companies involved.
The Code states that it is possible for a company to sponsor material, produced by a third party, which mentions its own products, and not be liable under the Code for its contents, but only if there has been a strictly arm's length arrangement between the parties. In practical terms the arrangements must be such that there can be no possibility that the pharmaceutical company has been able to exert any influence or control over the final content of the material. totalhealth operates such an 'arm's length' arrangement.
Our sponsors are not allowed to:
•Initiate the material or suggest the concept
•Influence the content/balance/scope of the material
•Choose or direct payment of the authors
What is HONcode accreditation?
The Health on the Net (HON) certificate serves as a guarantee that this website, at the date of its certification (September 2011), complies with and pledges to honour the 8 principles of the HON Code of Conduct as drawn up by the HON foundation. HONcode regularly monitor and check web content to ensure that it meets with these principles. The website must be/have:
1. Authoritative 2. Complementary 3. Privacy 4. Attribution 5. Justifiability 6. Transparency 7. Financial disclosure 8. Advertising policy
MedHunt
Health on the Net (HON) have produced a comprehensive list of medical information websites which satisfy the requirements of the HONcode accreditation process. As such, trustworthy and informative websites can be found on the MedHunt search engine. totalhealth is listed in multiple formats on the MedHunt website.