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Where the information comes from

PlainScript does not have opinions about medicines. It reads published, authoritative sources and puts them into plain English. This page names every one of them, and explains how to tell which words are theirs and which are ours.

Their words and ours

Two kinds of text appear in the app, and they are deliberately styled differently so you always know which you are reading.

  • Quotations are reproduced word for word, marked with the source's name and the date we copied them, and linked back to the original page. They are never shortened or reworded, because the licences that allow us to reproduce them only allow it unchanged.
  • Our plain-English writing is labelled as ours. Where we summarise a source, the summary is our responsibility and not the source's, and we do not put their name to words they did not approve. If our summary ever seems to differ from the original, the original is what counts.

The NHS website

Descriptions of what a medicine is for, how it is taken, and its common side effects draw on the medicines pages of nhs.uk. This material is Crown copyright, published under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

The NHS terms treat unchanged and adapted content differently, and are clear that adapted content must not be credited to them: adaptation can invalidate the clinical approval their name stands for. We follow that strictly. Where you see the NHS named, the words are theirs exactly, with the date we copied them. Where we have summarised or rewritten something, the NHS is not named and the general licence notice applies instead.

NICE guidance

National clinical guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence say which medicines are recommended for which conditions, and why. PlainScript is adding these medicine by medicine, and each one is checked against the published guideline by hand before it appears.

Two rules govern them without exception. A recommendation is only ever shown as an exact quotation, carrying its guideline number and a link to the guideline, because the NICE UK Open Content Licence permits reproduction but not rewording. And it is only shown to people in the UK, because that is the extent of the licence.

Alongside a quotation there is a plain-English explanation written by us and labelled as ours. NICE has not reviewed or approved our wording and is not responsible for it. NICE guidance is also not a substitute for the judgement of the professional treating you.

The British National Formulary

The BNF is the reference clinicians use, and it is where the complete lists of side effects and interactions live. PlainScript links to the relevant BNF page for every medicine it recognises, so you can reach the full picture. It does not reproduce any BNF text: the lists shown in the app are written by us, and are deliberately the common and notable items rather than all of them.

The NHS dictionary of medicines and devices

Working out which product a barcode or a photograph refers to uses dm+d, the NHS Business Services Authority's dictionary of every medicine licensed for use in the UK. Crown copyright, available under the Open Government Licence. PlainScript uses it to identify a pack and nothing else.

Research evidence

Where a result mentions the strength of evidence behind a use of a medicine, the underlying records come from PubMed and ClinicalTrials.gov, both run by the United States National Institutes of Health. PlainScript uses the factual record of a study, its title, identifier, design and size, to describe how well established something is. Abstracts and papers remain the copyright of their publishers and are linked, not reproduced.

Barcode lookups

For general retail products such as supplements and toiletries, barcodes are resolved through public product databases including Open Food Facts, Open Beauty Facts and UPCitemdb. These identify a product; they are not a source of health information.

What we write ourselves

The plain-English explanations, the "good to know" points, the questions to ask at an appointment, and the interaction prompts are written by us, based on the sources above. Facts about medicines are not anyone's property, but the way they are explained here is our own work and our own responsibility. Every one is written to be checkable against a source we name.

Keeping it current

Medicines information changes. Quotations carry the date they were copied, so you can always see how fresh a statement is, and the app refreshes its own cached results at least weekly. If you find something out of date, wrong, or unclear, please tell us: the feedback buttons on every result exist for exactly that, and kamiarazvine@plainscript.co.uk reaches a person.

Required notices

These statements are required by the licences under which the material is used, and are reproduced in the wording those licences specify.

  • Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
  • Information from the NHS website is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
  • Contains information from NICE guidance, used under the NICE UK Open Content Licence. NICE is not responsible for PlainScript's interpretation of it.

PlainScript is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by the NHS, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the MHRA, or any manufacturer. NHS and NICE logos and trade marks are not used, because those licences do not include them.