Editorial standards

Source standards

• Primary sources first. Substantive empirical claims are cited to primary sources wherever possible, including national bodies such as NICE and the ONS, statistical agencies, official data sources, peer-reviewed journals and archived records. Inline links and numbered references are used where appropriate.
• Show the working. Quantitative claims are accompanied, where possible, by the data and method needed to reproduce them. Illustrative examples are explicitly labelled as such and clearly separated from cited facts.
• Date-stamped data. Articles show both a publish date and a last-updated date. Time-sensitive content, including threshold values, cost estimates and policy positions, is revisited and re-dated when the underlying evidence changes. Data are date-stamped at the point of synchronisation.
• Accessible presentation. Each analysis opens with a plain-language summary for a general audience, then provides the technical detail that experts need.
• Original charts. Figures are created by the author unless otherwise stated. Original charts are licensed CC BY 4.0. Each chart includes descriptive alternative text and a data source in the caption.

Authorship

All original content is written and reviewed by Dr Darrin Baines, a health economist with more than 200 ORCID-listed works since 1995. There is no anonymous content on this site. Every article carries a visible byline, a link to the author's verified profile and a reachable contact address.

Software tools may assist with formatting, accessibility checks, structured-data generation and synchronisation of the publication list from ORCID. Editorial judgement, analysis and conclusions are the author's own. Automated tools do not determine the argument, interpretation or conclusions of articles published on this site.

Analysis and advice

The subject matter, the economics of healthcare and health systems, is one where analytical errors can have real-world consequences. The sourcing and methodology standards above are designed with that responsibility in mind. Uncertainty is stated explicitly, conclusions are distinguished from inferences and scope is limited to what the evidence supports.

Funding & conflicts of interest

This site and all content on it is self-funded. There are no grants, sponsors, advertisers or institutional funders. No third party has commissioned or paid for any article or analysis published here.

Darrin Baines works independently through Intelligent Parameters, providing consultancy services in health-economic analysis, HTA validation and decision-analytic modelling. Positions and analysis published on this site represent the author's own independent expert judgement and are not the position of any client, employer or institution.

Where an analysis or commentary touches on a topic where a potential conflict of interest might exist — for example, a therapy area in which consulting work has been undertaken — this will be stated explicitly in the relevant article.

Corrections

Accuracy matters more than appearances. Errors are corrected promptly and, where the correction is substantive, transparently. The full corrections policy, including types of correction, how they are handled and how to report an error, is set out on the corrections policy page.