How we write this
Who writes these pages, where the facts come from, how often they are checked, and what we stand to gain. Stated plainly, so you can weigh it.
Everything here is written by non-clinicians, built from named public health sources, and dated so you can see how fresh it is. It is not medical advice, and it has not yet been reviewed by a clinician. When that changes, this page will say so and the reviewer will be named.
Who writes this
Interval is a small UK team. The people writing these pages are not doctors, nurses or pharmacists, and we do not pretend to be. What we do is read the primary guidance carefully and put it into plain English, which is a genuinely useful job and a different job from giving clinical advice.
We say this plainly because health information online is full of pages that imply medical authorship without ever quite claiming it. We would rather tell you exactly what you are reading.
Where the information comes from
Every clinical statement on this site is drawn from one of a small number of public, citable sources:
- NHS — the public-facing condition and treatment pages.
- NICE Clinical Knowledge Summaries — the guidance UK GPs work from.
- BASHH — the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV, whose national guideline covers the management of genital herpes.
- WHO — for global prevalence estimates, which is the only place figures at that scale come from.
Where a page makes a factual claim, the source is linked at the point of the claim, and listed again at the foot of the page. If a claim has no source, it should not be on the page, and we would like to know about it.
How we handle numbers
Prevalence and transmission figures are the easiest thing to get wrong, and the most-repeated wrong things on the internet. Our rules:
- A figure is only published if we can point at the body that produced it.
- Estimates are described as estimates, with the population and year they apply to.
- We do not convert a global figure into a UK claim, or a study population into "people".
- Where the honest answer is a range, or "nobody knows precisely", we say that instead of picking the tidiest number.
How often it is reviewed
Every page carries the date it was last reviewed. We re-check pages at least once a year, and sooner if the underlying guidance changes. The date on the page is a real date: it changes when the content is genuinely re-read against source, not when a word is moved.
What this site does not do
- It does not give medical advice. It cannot see you, examine you, or know your history.
- It does not diagnose. Several conditions look like herpes, and telling them apart needs a clinician and usually a swab.
- It does not promise outcomes. There is no cure for herpes, and anyone selling you one is not being straight with you.
If you need care now, a sexual health clinic will see you free on the NHS, and you do not need a GP referral. If you are unwell and unsure, NHS 111 is the right call.
Our commercial interest, stated plainly
Interval intends to operate a paid herpes care service in the UK. That service is not open yet. When it opens, prescribing and dispensing will be carried out by a registered pharmacy partner, not by us, and that partner will be named on this site.
So: we are not a neutral party, and you should know that while you read. We have tried to write these pages as though we were — including saying, more than once, that the NHS route is free and is a good option. Judge the pages on whether they hold up against the sources, not on our say-so.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, out of date, or misleading, tell us and we will fix it. Corrections to anything clinical are made as a priority, and the review date is updated when we do. Write to hello@ojdigitalhealth.uk.