For providers
Embargoed material
How treatment centres can share a video, announcement or appointment that becomes public before our next ranking is published. It can be assessed early, but the published ranking only uses public evidence.
Sometimes a centre has evidence that will be public soon but is not public yet: a video about to launch, a clinical appointment not yet announced, a new accreditation with a fixed announcement date. You can share it with us before the release date so that we can assess it in time.
How it works
- Tell us what it is and when it will be public. Send it through your representative account with the planned release date and the public address it will appear at (for example the page or channel on your own site).
- We examine it. We check that it exists and what it shows, under the same rules as any other evidence.
- It can count in our pre-publication release. Before a ranking is published we release its complete data as a draft. Embargoed material can support a score in that draft. The criterion it supports is marked provisional, with the reason "supporting evidence under embargo, released before publication".
- We keep the details back. While the embargo runs we publish only that the item exists and which criterion it supports. Its address, title, quotes and snapshot are withheld.
- It must be public before the ranking is published. When the ranking is published, every embargoed item is either converted into ordinary public evidence (with its address and a snapshot) or its effect is removed and the criterion is scored again without it. A published ranking never rests on embargoed material.
The deadline that matters
Your release date must fall before the publication date of the ranking. If the material is not public by then, it does not count in that ranking. It can count in a later ranking once it is public.
If your release date moves, tell us straight away.
After release, keep it public
Once released, the material must stay where it was published. Evidence that appears shortly before a ranking and disappears afterwards is treated as an integrity matter: the evidence is excluded, the criterion is scored again, and a public integrity note may follow.
Embargoed or confidential?
| Embargoed material | Confidential evidence | |
|---|---|---|
| Will it become public? | Yes, before the ranking is published | No, never |
| Can it affect the public score and rank? | Yes, once public | No (extended score only), except an authority licence ruling where no public register exists |
| What we publish meanwhile | That it exists, which criterion, provisional status | That it exists, criterion, type, date received, fingerprint |
| Where to send it | Representative account, marked as embargoed with a release date | Representative account, as confidential evidence |
If the material will never be public, use confidential evidence instead.
What embargoed material is not
Embargoed is not the same as pending. Embargoed material exists and we have examined it; only its publication waits. A document you have promised but not yet sent, or a video we have not seen, counts for nothing until we have it.