Editorial · The rules

Editorial standards

This page exists so that a reader, a journalist, a clinician, or a regulator can see the rules this network operates under in one place. If a page on this site or any of the Six Doors sites breaks one of these rules, that is a mistake. Tell me and I will fix it.

1. Independence

No rehab pays this network. No broker pays this network. No referral fee, kickback, finder's fee, commission, or sponsorship payment is received from any clinic, treatment provider, intermediary, or referral business mentioned anywhere on the Six Doors sites. James Roberts, the author, has no equity, ownership, board seat, or advisory role at any treatment facility, broker, or referral business.

If that ever changes, the page will say so at the top in plain English before any other content. That has not happened and is not planned.

2. What we will not invent

The bots and the encyclopedia will not invent:

a rehab clinic that does not exist
a phone number
a price
an admissions criterion
a clinical lead's name or qualifications
a CQC registration number or equivalent
a waiting list status
a success rate

If a fact cannot be sourced or verified, it is not on the page. Where a number is given (mortality rate, seizure rate, prevalence) the source is linked.

3. Sources we cite

In order of weight on this network:

NICE clinical guidelines (UK)
NHS clinical pages and 111 service
Royal College of Psychiatrists guidance and reports
Care Quality Commission and equivalent regulators (Care Inspectorate Scotland, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, RQIA Northern Ireland)
Peer-reviewed clinical literature (Cochrane, BMJ, Lancet, Addiction)
Charity-sector research (Adfam, Alcohol Change UK, Turning Point)
First-person experience, clearly labelled as such

Where guidelines disagree (rare but real), the page says so and explains why.

4. What plain English means here

The Six Doors network is written for someone in week one. That means:

short sentences
British English spelling
£, not $
no acronyms without first-time expansion
no clinical Latin where a plain word exists
no marketing language disguised as guidance

Banned words on this network: journey, wellness, empower, transform, embrace.

5. Crisis routes are never paywalled

Every page on every site links to crisis routes — UK 999, Samaritans 116 123, your local emergency services, the hospital. These links sit above the fold and never sit behind any paywall, login, or paid subscription. They never will.

6. The paywall, explained

The bots on each site offer a free conversation length, then a one-time payment to continue. There is no subscription. There is no account. The price is a flat one-time localized tier — $19 USD / $24 CAD / £15 GBP / €18 EUR / $29 AUD / $29 NZD — paid once across the network, inclusive of all local taxes. Payment is handled by Lemon Squeezy (Stripe ecosystem) as Merchant of Record.

Note: Global tier structure implemented on 2026-05-26; superseded the historical uniform £50 baseline.

The paywall exists because running the bots costs money — model inference, hosting, content moderation. It does not exist to gate medical safety information. The encyclopedia, the crisis routes, and the directory information on every site are free and will stay free.

If the paywall ever fails to deliver the promised conversation length, message me on WhatsApp at +34 620 757 254 within fourteen days. Refund, no argument.

7. Names of clinics

When a UK rehab clinic is named on this network it is named because:

it admits patients directly
it has a verifiable CQC registration (or equivalent regulator outside England)
it has a named clinical lead
it answers the phone as itself, not as a broker

Naming a clinic is not an endorsement. It is acknowledgement that the building exists, takes patients, and can be phoned directly. The reader is expected to verify each clinic before contacting it. Ownership, leadership, admissions criteria, and clinical culture change. Names are reviewed periodically and the date of last review is on each page.

A clinic appearing on this network has not paid to appear. A clinic missing from this network has not refused to pay.

The list reflects what was visible, verifiable, and operating directly at the time of writing.

8. Corrections

If a fact on this network is wrong, message me on WhatsApp at +34 620 757 254 with the page URL and what is wrong, or flag it to the bot. Corrections are made within seven days where possible. Where a correction is significant, the page carries a dated note at the bottom recording what was changed and when.

This applies to clinical facts, named individuals, named clinics, prices, sources, and dates. It does not apply to opinion or judgement, which the reader is welcome to disagree with.

9. Who writes this

Every page on the Six Doors network is written or edited by James Roberts. There is no anonymous staff. There are no ghostwriters. AI assistance is used in drafting, research, and review — every page is read line by line by a named human (James) before publication.

If a page does not have James's name at the bottom and a "last reviewed" date, it is not published.

10. Privacy

Bot conversations are not used to train models. Conversations are not sold. Conversations are not shared with rehabs, brokers, or any third party. The privacy policy on each site says exactly what is stored, for how long, and why. If you want a conversation deleted, email and it is deleted.

11. Medical limits

This network is not a clinician. The bots are not clinicians. The encyclopedia is not medical advice. If you need medical advice, see a doctor. If you are physically dependent on alcohol and considering stopping, see your doctor or your local emergency services — the page on dangerous withdrawal signs explains why. Crisis goes to 999.

12. Conflicts of interest, in full

James Roberts, author of this network, has the following potentially relevant interests, declared in full:

Was a paying patient at Delamere, Cheshire, in June 2020. Has no commercial relationship with Delamere. Mentions Delamere on this network only as a fact of his own history.
Ran a headhunting firm in travel and hospitality until 2020. The firm placed executives at hotel groups and travel businesses. None of those clients are mentioned on this network.
Owned and operated Casa Salvia BnB in Tenerife from 2020 until recent sale. Casa Salvia hosted some guests in recovery. No clinical or commercial relationship with any rehab arose from this.
Has no current paid role at any addiction-related organisation.
Has no shareholding or directorship in any treatment facility, broker, referral business, or rehab marketing company.

If any of these change, this page will be updated within seven days.

13. Recusal — when James will not write about, score, or comment on a clinic

The Conflicts of Interest section above declares prior paying-patient status at one UK residential treatment centre. That fact alone does not, by policy on this network, trigger recusal from any future editorial work — including comparing that clinic against others on the clinic-compare brief. Treating prior patienthood as automatically disqualifying would weaken the utility of lived experience without strengthening independence; and it would create a perverse incentive to never name the clinic at all, which is itself a form of obscurity.

James will recuse from a specific clinic comparison, scoring, or commentary if any of the following apply:

A current personal relationship with anyone at, or contracting to, that clinic — clinical staff, owners, directors, marketing partners, brokers, or anyone whose income depends on its admissions.
Confidential inside knowledge of that clinic obtained outside the public record — for example, financial detail shared in confidence, regulatory matters not yet public, or staff disclosures.
Personal involvement in the clinic's affairs after his own admission ended — repeat stays, alumni-network roles, paid speaking, anything that goes beyond the fact of having paid for and completed treatment in 2020.
Self-assessed inability to remain impartial about that clinic, for any reason. This is the residual judgement clause: if the editorial work would not be balanced, James says so and steps back, named.

Where recusal applies, the brief either omits that clinic from comparison entirely (with the omission stated and explained on the brief) or, where omission would weaken the brief itself, James commissions an external clinical reviewer to write that section and signs the brief jointly with the reviewer.

The single prior-patient relationship at the residential treatment centre in Cheshire described in the section above does not, today, trigger any of the four conditions. Should that change, this page is updated within seven days as above and the change is logged in the December Transparency Post.

13a. When the buyer discloses a prior connection

A buyer applying for the £149 written brief sometimes discloses, in the application form or in the chat, that they or someone they care about has a prior connection to the same UK residential treatment centre James attended in 2020 — for example, “my husband went there too, that’s how I found you.” The buyer is reading this page; the connection is offered openly; the disclosure itself is the opposite of a hidden conflict.

The rule on this network: a buyer-disclosed prior connection to that clinic, on its own, is treated as neutral data. It does not trigger recusal, it does not change the price, it does not change the format of the brief, and it does not in itself remove or insert that clinic in the shortlist. The shortlist is built on the clinical fit for the patient described in the application — not on who knows whom. If the prior-connection clinic appears in the buyer’s shortlist on clinical grounds, the brief states the connection plainly on the deliverable: that James was a paying patient at that clinic in 2020, that the buyer disclosed prior knowledge of this on the application, and that neither fact altered the comparison method. If the prior-connection clinic does not appear in the shortlist, the brief states that fact too, with the clinical reason. Either way, the disclosure and the editorial decision are logged in the December Transparency Post for that year.

If any of the four recusal triggers above are also present alongside the buyer-disclosed connection — for instance, the buyer turns out to be currently employed at that clinic — the connection stops being neutral data and the standard recusal rule applies: the clinic is omitted from comparison or an external reviewer is commissioned to write that section.