Supplier submission and verification interest

2026-09-25

This proposed supplier submission section collects business and evidence details for assessment against the directory standard. Submission is free and does not guarantee inclusion, verification or ranking. It must not be published until the privacy notice destination and a working withdrawal contact have been confirmed.

Publication status and directory scope

This section is not ready to publish. A supplier submission form involves collecting personal and business information. Before it appears on the clinics directory, the site must confirm the destination of its privacy notice and the contact route by which a person can withdraw consent or ask for their submitted information to be removed from consideration. Those details cannot be replaced with an assumed address, a generic instruction or an untested form field.

When those routes are confirmed, this section may sit after the existing directory introduction. It is for suppliers wishing to put their details forward for possible assessment. It is not a reader tool, a recommendation, a complaints process or a route for resolving treatment disputes. Nothing in a submission changes the directory's national city scope. City pages may cover the cities already within the directory's stated coverage, but this section must not expand into district-level coverage for London or any other city.

A submitted business is not thereby listed. A listed business is not thereby ranked above another business. The purpose of a submission is to provide a structured starting point for assessment, including the material needed to consider whether the published verification standard can be met. Assessment capacity may be limited. Where no assessment can be undertaken, the directory should say so rather than imply that receipt of a form is a form of approval.

Nothing on this directory is a recommendation. A supplier submission is a request for assessment, not an endorsement, verification outcome or position in a list.

Supplier submission fields

The form should ask only for information relevant to identifying the supplier, understanding the requested directory coverage and locating material for assessment. Required fields should be labelled clearly. Free-text fields should prompt concise factual information rather than promotional claims. The form should not invite patient stories, treatment photographs, medical histories, complaint details or other information that is unnecessary for a listing assessment.

The form should also provide a named contact person and a contact method for questions about the submission. That contact information should not be presented publicly merely because it has been supplied for assessment. A supplier should be able to state where an evidence source is held, who can provide it and whether it contains material that should not be retained beyond assessment.

Evidence submitted for assessment

The assessment request should make clear what the directory standard requires. The relevant material is evidence that a register entry has been sighted and dated, premises registration where required, indemnity, and a named prescriber. A supplier may identify the source of each item and provide the material needed to assess it. Sending documents does not establish that the requirement has been met. It only allows the assessment process to begin where capacity exists.

Evidence should be current at the point it is submitted. Where a document has a date, expiry period or stated scope, the supplier should identify it. If a requirement applies only to particular premises, practitioners or treatment types, the supplier should make that limitation clear. The directory must not turn a document relating to one person or one location into a general claim about a wider group of locations or services.

Suppliers should avoid including unnecessary personal data in uploaded material. Where a document contains information unrelated to the assessment, the supplier should consider whether a redacted version can show the relevant point. The submission route should explain that material is reviewed for the limited purpose of deciding whether an entry can be assessed under the directory standard, not for making clinical judgments about a treatment outcome.

If evidence cannot be checked, is incomplete, does not relate to the proposed entry, or cannot be reviewed within available capacity, the appropriate result is no inclusion. The directory may record that a submission was received for administration, but receipt must not be displayed as verification. Equally, a business not shown in the directory has not necessarily failed the standard. It may simply not have been assessed.

What submission can and cannot lead to

Submission is free. It does not guarantee inclusion, verification or ranking. It does not create a right to a directory entry, a right to an assessment within a particular time, or a right to use a directory badge. It also does not mean that the submitted information will be published. Publication, if any, follows assessment under the stated standard and remains subject to the directory's editorial and operational limits.

The site should use a short decision rule that can be read before a supplier completes the form:

The form must not promise visibility in search results, priority treatment, a favourable editorial outcome or comparative placement. It should not use language such as approved, preferred, leading or recommended. If the directory has no capacity to assess new submissions, the form should be replaced with a clear statement that assessment is not currently available. Collecting evidence while unable to assess it would create an avoidable impression that a review is underway.

Payment, relationships and labelling

Any distinction between assessment and paid publication must be intelligible at the point of submission. Payment must not buy position, a higher ranking, a positive description or a review outcome. Where a paid listing is available after assessment, its status should be labelled. An alphabetical labelled entry is different from prominence purchased through placement, and the form should not describe payment in a way that obscures that distinction.

The directory should also disclose relevant commercial relationships wherever they appear. Any paid listing, referral relationship, affiliate link or sponsored editorial must be labelled. The label should be close enough to the relevant entry or content for a reader to understand its status without having to search elsewhere on the site. A supplier's completion of the form cannot remove the need for this disclosure, and no label should suggest that a commercial arrangement is itself evidence of verification.

The submission form should include a factual declaration that the person completing it is authorised to provide the information on behalf of the legal business named. It may also ask whether the supplier is seeking a paid listing option, but that question must be separate from the assessment evidence and optional. A supplier declining any paid option must receive the same stated treatment of its evidence as any other supplier, subject to capacity and scope.

Editorial content should remain distinguishable from supplier information and from commercial arrangements. The directory should not accept wording that requires it to make unverified performance, safety or comparative claims. Where an entry cannot be described accurately within the directory's standard, it should not be published simply because a supplier has submitted evidence or expressed interest in a paid option.

Consent, privacy notice and withdrawal

The form needs an unticked consent checkbox before submission. The wording should identify who receives the information, why it is received, and the fact that the submission is voluntary. It should not bundle consent for assessment with consent for promotional messages, publication, sharing with unrelated parties or future uses that the supplier has not been told about.

Proposed checkbox wording:

I confirm that I am authorised to submit this information for the legal business named. I consent to the directory publisher and its authorised editorial or administrative personnel receiving and using the information and evidence supplied to consider this submission for assessment and possible directory inclusion, and to contact me about that assessment. I understand that submission is free and does not guarantee inclusion, verification or ranking. I have read the privacy notice and understand how to withdraw this consent.

The words “privacy notice” must link to the confirmed privacy notice destination when this section is built. The withdrawal wording must identify a confirmed contact route that can receive and act on requests. Neither item should be left as placeholder text, a vague reference to a contact page, or an unmonitored mailbox. Until both are confirmed, this form and the checkbox wording must remain unpublished.

Withdrawal should be possible without requiring a supplier to explain why. A request to withdraw should be treated as a request to stop consideration of the submission, subject to any information the publisher needs to retain for a legitimate administrative or legal reason. The public copy should not promise deletion in every circumstance unless the underlying retention process supports that promise. If information has already been published, the withdrawal route should explain that removal from assessment and removal of a public entry may involve separate practical steps.

Limits of this section

This section is for businesses or authorised representatives seeking possible assessment for a national city-directory entry. It does not assess individual patient suitability, treatment outcomes, clinical quality, value, customer service, complaints, refunds or disputes. It is not an appointment service, a reader-side guide to choosing a practitioner, or a route for obtaining medical advice. People seeking care should use appropriate professional and regulatory routes rather than submit information through this supplier process.

It does not create coverage for every city, every treatment category, every practitioner at a business, or every premises associated with a legal entity. A submission should identify the particular locations and treatment categories in scope. The directory must not infer coverage beyond what has been assessed. It also does not provide London district pages or neighbourhood-level comparisons. The national city-directory format remains the limit.

The verification standard is a directory standard, not a guarantee about future conduct or a continuing statement that documents will remain current after their review date. A supplier remains responsible for ensuring that information it provides is accurate and for notifying the directory if a material point affecting a published entry changes. The directory may need to reassess an entry when relevant information changes, but this section should not promise continuous monitoring.

Finally, non-inclusion is not a finding against a supplier. Not listed means not assessed. It may mean that no submission has been made, the evidence was not ready for review, the request was outside scope, or assessment capacity was unavailable. Readers should not treat the absence of an entry as a recommendation of another supplier or as evidence about the absent business.

Disclosure. This article names a business and links to its website. This publication and that website are managed by the same group, which is a commercial relationship. The business did not write or approve the article, and it is named because it is relevant to the subject.