Any General Practice may advertise the services they offer to patients but must follow both GMC and Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) guidance.
In the past the GMC published extensive guidance on advertising medical services; from the perspective of historical interest this was withdrawn in 1997.
GMC guidance: Advertising (Oct 1995) – Archived (gmc-uk.org)
Much has changed, and the GMC does not have a separate section on ‘advertising’ in its current guidance, instead incorporating its advice within the Paragraphs on communication with patients. Any information about your practice must follow Para 70 of Good Medical Practice, and:
- be factual and open to checking
- not exploit patients’ vulnerability and lack of medical knowledge
ASA guidance means that published material must be accurate, legal, decent, truthful and honest, and socially responsible, by which is meant not encouraging illegal, unsafe, or anti-social behaviour.
In addition, GMC Good Medical Practice guidance para 36, ‘You must treat colleagues fairly and with respect’ may also apply, since when advertising your practice, whilst you can state the services which are available from your practice and, for example, the relevant facilities or qualifications of treating clinicians, you cannot imply that your services are better, or that another practice’s services are worse. This type of comment could breach both Para. 36 and also Para. 70, since patients might not have the technical knowledge to distinguish the relevance and veracity of such claims.
All practices are required to publish a practice leaflet, and many practices include the information, or much of it within this, on their website. There is a list of information that must be made available within the leaflet at Part 6 of Schedule 3 of the GMS Regulations, with the same applicable to PMS practices.
Practice can, if they wish, advertise their practice locally, for example, in libraries and community centres, or even by leaflet drop, perhaps if a new housing development is being built. Normally any such advertising should be aimed at patients who would be eligible to register, but some venues may be used by patients outside your registration policy and so a caveat, or further information, such as your practice boundary, should be included. NHS services that are available, and, for example, appointments timings that may be seen as of interest (such as evening or ‘commuter’ clinics) can be mentioned but no comment should be made about services available, or not available, at other local practices.
GP practices cannot offer incentives in relation to patients NHS registration; registration-associated services, such as new patient medicals can be noted but not as being an advantage gained by registering at your practice in distinction from another practice. Similarly, ‘add-ons’ such as blood pressure checks on attending vaccination clinics, can again be noted, but as this follows NHS England recommended policy (MECC – Making Every Contact Count) it cannot be said to distinguish your practice from others locally.
Community pharmacists are also not allowed to offer inducements to members of the public for using their NHS services, such as vouchers or gifts. GP practices cannot accept similar (or indeed any) inducements that promote the use of any particular pharmacy (this is known as prescription direction and the LMC and LPC have separate guidance on this). In addition, dispensing practices, whilst they can advertise the availability of their pharmacy services to patients who are eligible to use them, and draw patients’ attention to the ‘serious difficulty‘ rule, should not preferentially encourage these or effectively discourage patients who may choose to use a community pharmacist even if eligible for dispensary prescribing.
GPs are also restricted in terms of advertising (and offering) private services under changes made to the GMS (and PMS) Contract from October 2019; this is separate to the existing restrictions on charging NHS registered patients’ fees unless specific circumstances apply. This means GPs cannot advertise certain private services, being defined as services that would be NHS services under a primary medical services contract, to patients other than their registered patients (who could not be charged anyway) except when these services are delivered:
- outside the hours covered by the primary medical services by that contractor.
- not from premises (or the parts of premises that are) covered by the Premises Cost Directions, and
- in addition, the mode of such advertising cannot be in the same form as is used to advertise the commissioned NHS primary medical services it provides.
Having been introduced just prior to the pandemic, the LMC has very limited experience of these new clauses being interpreted by NHS England/local commissioners but over time it is likely these will be clarified in more detail.
Please contact the LMC Office with any queries about this resource.