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This page is a reference guide for style features that are particular to HSJ.

Other useful style guides are those for The Economist and The Guardian.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A

Abbreviations

Please avoid using unnecessary or uncommon abbreviations. Obscure ones just confuse the reader and are usually the result of laziness. There are far more elegant ways to avoid repeating full phrases eg: the council rather than GMC.

Where we do abbreviate, spell out the organisation name/job title/project name in full at first mention. Abbreviate with initials/acronym subsequently. No full points and closed up. If the abbreviation is particularly esoteric or sector specific, add the abbreviation in brackets after the initial mention eg coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) or acute provider collaborative (APC).

No need to spell out on first mention: NHS, HSJ, AIDS, UK, VAT, HIV, KC, US (rather than USA), EU, IT, MP, MSP, TUC, BBC, MEP, CV, DNA, GP, MRSA, UKIP, PwC.

Spell out on first mention:

Advanced FTs – advanced foundation trusts

A&E – accident and emergency

AHSN – academic health science network

BMA – British Medical Association

CCG – clinical commissioning group

CQC – Care Quality Commission

CQUIN – commissioning for quality and innovation

CSU – commissioning support unit

DGH – district general hospital

DHSC – Department of Health and Social Care

DWP – Department for Work and Pensions

FT – foundation trust

GMC – General Medical Council

Government – we do not abbreviate this to “govt”, even in headlines

ICB – integrated care board

ICS – integrated care system

ICU - intensive care unit

LGBT – lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender

LGA – Local Government Association

DLUHC – Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

NAO – National Audit Office

NHSE – NHS England

NHSE/I – NHS England and Improvement

NHSI – NHS Improvement

OECD – Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

OFT – Office of Fair Trading

ONS – Office for National Statistics

PCN – primary care network

PFI – private finance initiative

PHE – Public Health England

QIPP – quality, innovation, productivity and prevention

RCGP – Royal College of General Practitioners

RCN – Royal College of Nursing

RCP – Royal College of Physicians (note: no abbreviation for Royal College of Psychiatrists)

RSV – respiratory syncytial virus

10YHP - 10-Year Health Plan

WHO – World Health Organization

Note: no abbreviations for NHS Confederation, NHS Employers or friends and family test

Accents

Accents should be used accurately in accordance with the original language. Where the word has been absorbed into English usage, drop them.

Americanisms

Use English, not American spelling; ‘s’, not ‘z’.

eg: organisation, not organization.

In copy about the US, anglicise terms like physician to doctor, attorney to lawyer. But respect terms for which there is no English equivalent. It would be absurd, for example, in a piece on New York to change Subway to Tube or Underground. And proper names retain the American spelling, eg World Health Organization.

Note: computer program, not programme.

Ampersands

In general, not to be used.

Common exceptions are Marks & Spencer, R&D, A&E. Ernst & Young has changed its name to EY.

Apostrophes

The possessive singular should be formed by adding -’s, regardless of the letter the noun ends in. This includes abbreviations eg the NHS’s, the ICS’s. However, the exception to this rule is when it is somebody’s name, where the plural apostrophe should be used instead eg Lord Stevens’, not Lord Stevens’s

B

Bullet points

Unless they are exceptionally short, news articles typically have two or three bullet points in their introduction, which aim to summarise some of the finer points of the story. Please avoid bullet points which essentially reword the headline or opening par.

Unlike the main news copy, bullet points are usually written in present tense (except where past tense is more appropriate or present tense would not make sense) and abbreviations can be used without writing out in full first. However, quote marks are double rather than singular, as they would be in the main copy.

There is no need to put full stops at the end of the bullet points at the top of the article.

C

Capitalisation

Keep capitals to a minimum — when in doubt, use lower case.

eg: white paper, government, next stage review.

Where an organisation has been referred to once by its full title, subsequent references will be lower case.

eg: The NHS Confederation holds its annual conference next week. The confederation usually provides a useful quote.

Books, magazines, newspapers; reports, legislation, white papers; plays, operas, songs, ships etc

All in italics, no quote marks. Initial caps for main words, eg: Gone with the Wind.

Campaigns, programmes etc

Branded schemes and programmes take initial caps (Patient Safety First, Expert Patient Programme, Getting it Right First Time, Prevention of Future Deaths) but lower case for any old local team/committee/scheme, eg Kent local medical committee.

Newspaper titles as per their mastheads

The Times

The Daily Telegraph

The Sunday Telegraph

The Sunday Times

The Sun

The Guardian

The Independent

The Mail on Sunday

The Spectator

The Economist

The Lancet

But:

Financial Times

Daily Mail

Daily Star

Daily Mirror

Daily Express

Sunday Mirror

Sunday Express

British Medical Journal

Health Service Journal is always HSJ (italicised)

Geography

North, south etc are lower case, except when forming part of the name of a region, eg: West Country, West Midlands, East Anglia, the South West, the North.

Note: north west London (not hyphenated).

Government and state

UK and foreign governments are lower case. But Parliament (UK and Scottish), House of Commons, House of Lords, and Senate (US) have initial caps.

Budget

Initial cap, but spring statement etc is lower case. Pre-Budget report. Prime minister’s question time (PMQs); not to be confused with Question Time (TV programme). King’s Speech (at opening of Parliament).

Cabinet

Initial cap

Councils

Initial caps and written out in full (eg: Birmingham City Council) but ‘the council’.

Courts

Initial caps for High Court and above. So High Court, Appeal Court, but crown court and magistrates court (no apostrophe).

Note: Scottish courts: court of session (lower case), but High Court.

Job titles

All lower case. It’s health secretary Wes Streeting and then Mr Streeting and prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, then Sir Keir.

But where the job title is used as a form of address, it takes an initial cap, eg: President Macron, President Trump, but the president (no first names).

Use health secretary rather than secretary of state for health. Junior minister, not under secretary of state for health.

Note: when it is the office rather than the individual in it under discussion, secretary of state is correct.

eg: The proposed hospital closures had to be referred for approval by the secretary of state.

The Pope and the King are exceptions to the capitalisation rule. Both have initial caps.

Double check if people are professors, doctors, sirs and dames.

Other job titles should always be lower case, eg: managing director, chief executive. Note: vice president (not hyphenated).

Legislation

Initial caps for full title of bill or act only.

eg: Choosing Health white paper, Health and Social Care Act. Then the white paper, the act, the bill.

Sections and sub-clauses of legislation are lower case, and, where a number is supplied, this is always a figure and not a word.

eg: section 5, not section five.

Road Traffic Act 1988, not 1988 Road Traffic Act

Select committees, inquiries, reviews, etc

Lower case.

eg: Commons health committee, public accounts committee

Social services

Generically, social services is lower case.

Political parties

Labour, Liberal Democrats (not Lib Dems, except in headlines or opinion pieces, and never LibDems). Conservative, not Tory, at first mention.

Name the party when mentioning a politician for the first time if it is not obvious from the context, eg: health and social care committee chair Layla Moran (Lib Dem). The exception is in the first par of a story; in this case put the party in on the second mention.

Others

Armed services

Army, Navy (not Royal Navy) have initial caps. The Air Force is simply RAF in all mentions. But police is lower case.

Seasons

All take lower case.

Transport

It’s Tube, not tube. Underground, not underground.

Universities

Oxford University, not University of Oxford. However, there are a few exceptions. University of East Anglia is not East Anglia University. Then ‘the university’ (no initial cap).

Imperial College London (no comma). It is, after all, its name. Lose the London for subsequent mentions.

Subdivisions of institutions take lower case, eg: University College Hospital’s department of gynaecology, York University’s centre for health economics.

Wars

First World War (initial caps and no abbreviation), Second World War (Not World War II).

Websites

Web addresses are written out in lower case, eg: hsj.co.uk. But web-based companies take their proper names (Amazon, iTunes, TripAdvisor, etc).

X-ray

Also T-shirt, not t-shirt; OK, not okay, U-turn, not u-turn. Check the dictionary if you are unsure.

Cliches

Don’t use them, of course

Collective nouns

These take the singular.

eg: The department is…, the trust is…, Bupa is….

Data, though strictly plural, takes the singular.

Commas

Use Oxford commas if parts of the list in question are particularly wordy and the comma is needed to provide clarity.

Commercial names

Try to avoid pandering to commercial enthusiasm for “eye-catching” titles, company names and consultancies. There is a grey area where a name ceases to be simply a commercial title and becomes a logo; there is no necessity for us to replicate them in text. A mixture of upper and lower case within a single name is visually ugly, interrupts the flow of text and smacks of free publicity.

However, Marks & Spencer is the universal designation for the well-known department store.

Committees, pay review bodies, royal commissions

The main BMA committees are GPs, consultants and specialists, junior doctors (all are plural with no apostrophe – adjectival rather than possessive). But nurses’ pay review body etc.

General Medical Council (then GMC), but professional conduct committee etc. Only the GMC is abbreviated after the first mention. ‘The committee…’ is usually the best way of avoiding long-winded repetition.

The titles of specific royal commissions have initial caps, though generically (as above) they don’t.

Companies

Use the name in full initially; avoid use of Ltd and plc, unless necessary to avoid confusion (eg: in legal cases involving companies or where a partnership and a company by the same name exist).

Contractions (grammatical)

These – she’s, he’d etc – are fine in quotes and columns but look sloppy and informal in news stories. This is a general rule – use common sense to avoid absurd and tortuous constructions.

Coronavirus

Rather than referring to waves by their ordinal number (eg ‘first’, ‘second’), use the season in which they occurred (so ‘spring 2020’, ‘autumn 2020’, ‘winter 2021’ and ‘summer 2021’).

Criminals

We don’t make implied moral judgements about people who have been charged or convicted of offences by dropping their titles. After using their full name on first mention, they become Mr Sutcliffe or Ms Letby, like all other quoted persons.

Crossheads

Crossheads in news stories should only be used to break up very long stories. They can be used more liberally in feature articles, comments etc. Style them with ‘Heading 3’. Quotation marks should be singular, as they are in headlines.

Cross references

Use hyperlinks to refer to previous relevant articles. Place the link on a relevant sentence in the story rather than writing ‘click here’. Set the link to open in a new tab.

Czar / Tsar

We use tsar

D

Dead people

There are exceptions to the general rule of using a name in full the first time, then the title and surname.

The main exception is famous dead people. Refer to these by their surname alone, without the title.

eg: Lloyd George rather than Mr Lloyd George.

The title is also sometimes dropped in opinion and when referring to authors of books and reports.

eg: In chapter two, Dimcock writes of the….

Use common sense: if using the title sounds ridiculous, drop it. If dropping it sounds absurd, use it.

Devolution/regional assemblies

Scottish Parliament, then the parliament.

Welsh Assembly, then the assembly.

Greater London Authority, then the GLA.

Northern Ireland Assembly, then the assembly.

Scotland now has the Scottish government, not the Scottish Executive, and Wales has the Welsh Assembly government.

Representatives:

Scotland: MSP (initials always).

Wales: Welsh Assembly member (no abbreviation).

Northern Ireland: Northern Ireland Assembly member (no abbreviation).

London: Greater London Authority member, then GLA member. Remember to distinguish between the authority and the assembly. It is the authority that takes the GLA abbreviation, not the assembly.

Diagrams, tables, boxouts

Try to include diagrams and tables in the main copy, unless doing so would become cumbersome. If so, attach copies of the raw data to the Webvision article with a clear title.

Graphs should be named with an explanation of what they actually show, eg: rather than “Admissions over time”, use “Admissions rise since four-hour A&E target”. Avoid abbreviations in graphs to prevent confusion. Always make sure there is a named source of the data.

Disability and other long-term conditions

Don’t define people by their illness/condition eg do not write “the disabled”.

Preferably, it should be “people with a disability” on first instance, then ”disabled people” afterwards or where the former would be too lengthy (eg in a headline, on a table or chart).

Avoid terms like “suffers from” unless somebody uses it in a quote about themselves.

Doctors

Medical doctors: Nigel Burbon, then Dr Burbon.

Non-medical doctors: don’t use the Dr. They are simply Mr or Ms.

Surgeons: Fred Bloggs – not Mr Fred Bloggs – then Mr Bloggs. Try to avoid confusion by making clear from the context that they are surgeons.

Drugs, pharmaceuticals, viruses and diseases

Bacteria

Bacteria names are italicised. Familiar bacteria, such as E coli, C difficile are used in abbreviated form the first time; don’t abbreviate them any further (eg: C diff). Don’t confuse viruses and bacteria.

Drugs

Generic pharmaceutical names are lower case and brand names have initial caps. You can check using the British national formulary. Note: the Pill (contraceptive).

Diseases

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Down’s syndrome, Parkinson’s disease.

Note: be careful to distinguish between diseases and conditions; the former are (usually) degenerative and characterised by infected tissue; the latter are chronic and non-life threatening. Cancer is a disease, diabetes is a condition.

MRSA: Spell out (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) on first mention only if it’s essential to the piece. Otherwise don’t bother.

E

eg, ie, etc

Lower case, closed up, no full points.

Ellipses

… not […], leave a space after. No need to use both ellipses and square brackets.

er/or

Where there is a choice, always use ‘er’. For example: adviser, not advisor. But demonstrator, not demonstrater.

Ethnicity

Our preferred style is minority ethnic, although ethnic minority is also fine if it helps the copy flow better. Preferably, write “patients/staff from a minority ethnic background” on first instance and then shorten to “minority ethnic patients/staff” afterwards.

Avoid BAME or BME, except where it is attributed to another organisation or agency which is using that term and there is no way to get around using it. Same for “non-white”.

We cap up Black eg “He said he wanted to raise the profile of Black managers in the NHS.”

Europe

EU – not spelt out in full; always caps.

The euro (currency).

European Court of Justice (initial caps).

F

Foreign phrases

In italics, except where they have passed into common English usage.

eg: quid pro quo, but status quo, post mortem, creche.

If in doubt, abide by Hart’s Rules.

Avoid foreign phrases if a plainer English equivalent exists, eg: ‘a year’ rather than ‘per annum’.

G

Government

When talking about the folks at Westminster we should refer to “the government”. But drop the definite article when talking about government in the abstract, eg ”It’s important to have strong government”.

H

Headlines

News

Always use a verb. Active is preferred over passive.

Avoid repeating words in the headline and bullet points. Use the news bullet points to explain finer points of the story rather than simply repeating the headline.

Only use abbreviations which are well known. Don’t be tempted to turn government into ‘govt’.

Try to avoid numbers, but where they are necessary you can use k for thousands, m for millions, and bn for billions, and % instead of per cent.

Put key information such as names and places at the front of the headline, as this makes them easier to search for.

One way of formatting headlines online is putting key words followed by a colon for further explanation, eg: ‘Francis report: government response’.

Opinion/Comment

Try to use a bit of colour and wit – no one wants to read “David Lee on health inequalities” but do include the author’s full name in the headline if it is someone of note.

Daily Insight

Similar to opinions and comments, try to use a bit of wit if appropriate.

This is also your chance to ponder the finer points of a news story (and it is a well-read newsletter which drives a fair amount of traffic) so please avoid merely rewording your article.

Hyphens

Use sparingly and sensibly. Use for adjectival constructions if it adds clarity. So practice-based commissioning, full-time job, long-term conditions, long-term plan, 10-Year Health Plan etc.

Use hyphens with the usual prefixes (non-, ex-, pre-, post- etc)

Hyphenate the e- prefix (e-learning). The exception is email.

Anything with the prefix multi is closed up (multitasking, multidisciplinary). So is anti (antidepressant, antisocial) and sub (subcommittee). Exception is where it would create an uncommon construct.

Under- and over- prefixes are closed up (underpaid, overdrawn).

Re prefix should be closed up (eg: readmission) except for where this would create a not commonly used or difficult to read construct.

Among the commonly used words that are hyphenated are: follow-up, link-up, step-change, ring-fenced, cover-up.

Among the most frequently used words that are closed up and without hyphens are: healthcare, inpatient, antenatal, multidisciplinary, reconfiguration, neonatal, perinatal, outpatient, postgraduate, underfunding, proactive, overuse, underuse, comorbidities, payout (when being used as a noun).

For words not listed above where there is more than one possible spelling, closed up and without hypens is the preferred choice.

Data set is two separate words.

I

Integrated care systems

These should be referred to as “integrated care systems”, especially when referring to the geographic area covered or actions taken by the organisation as a whole. “Integrated care board” should only be used when referring specifically to the board.

IT

IT is not spelt out in full first time. Information management and technology becomes IM&T after first mention. The internet (lower case ‘i’), website (one word, lower case), web (lower case), intranet (lower case), email (not hyphenated, lower case), medtech (one word, lower case), online (one word, lower case), homepage (ditto).

Electronic patient record and electronic prescribing system are written out in full, then abbreviated to EPR/EPS.

Italics

For white papers etc, reports, media titles (including HSJ), films, books, songs, poems, restaurants, ships and long excerpts from books or reports. Avoid using to indicate emphasis.

Only italicise HSJ when referring to the website, not the HSJ Awards etc.

J

Job titles and names

For first mention, use first name and surname, as in Fred Bloggs.

Subsequent mentions will be Mr Bloggs. In the case of Freda Bloggs, subsequent mentions will be Ms Bloggs, unless, exceptionally, it is known that Ms Bloggs is married and particularly dislikes the prefix Ms or it seems particularly inappropriate, in which case she becomes Mrs Bloggs.

The designation is: Acme trust chief executive John Reed said…

However, if the job title is reasonably lengthy and placing it before the name would produce an unclear and difficult to read sentence, use commas.

eg: John Smith, general manager for acute services and deputy chief executive at Acme Trust, said…

With professors and doctors etc don’t use the title at first mention. Eg: Louis Appleby, then Professor Appleby; Michael Dixon, then Dr Dixon. BUT: Sir Liam Donaldson/Dame Barbara Hakin, then Sir Liam/Dame Barbara…

Use “Professor” only for individuals who formally hold a professorial title in medicine or medical sciences.

This includes academic professors in clinical medicine, biomedical research, and allied medical disciplines.

Do not use the title “Professor” for individuals from other academic fields (e.g. history, engineering, law), even if they hold a formal professorial post. In such cases, default to courtesy titles such as Mr, Ms, Dr, or as appropriate.

Correspondents should (briefly) try to find out what type of professor someone is. However, in supplements like the BAME 50 there might be too many for checking them all to be feasible, in which case just go with the title if that’s what they use.

If someone is lucky enough to be a Professor Sir, call them that at first mention (Professor Sir Mike Richards) and then just refer to them as Sir Mike.

Armed services and police

Use rank in full and unabbreviated.

Corporal Peter Smith and then Corporal Smith.

Gender

Chair, not chairman or chairwoman, as a rule, unless the organisation is well known to do otherwise. Spokesman/spokeswoman when known.

Initials

Avoid, except for references and readers’ feedback.

L

Latin (endings)

HSJ tends to ignore the dictates of Latin word endings and follows modern usage.

eg: The data from the World Health Organisation is… (rather than datum is, or data are). Similarly, stadiums (not stadia), consortiums (not consortia).

Law

Cases: in italics, eg: R v Acme Health Trust.

Courts: upper case.

Note: legal aid (lower case).

Judgment: without an e, when delivered by a court. Judgement in all other contexts.

Judges: Mr Justice Brown and then the judge (High Court); Lord Justice Black and then the judge. If the judge is a QC, they keep this designation.

Tribunals: lower case.

Lists

Use bullet points and separate with a semi-colon, unless the points are particularly wordy (use common sense). Lists in dedicated boxes of names/very short points need neither full stops nor semi-colons. Avoid numbered lists except where it makes more sense to use them (eg: ‘top 10 tips’).

Location

Don’t assume – especially with London locations – that everyone is familiar with them.

Often the place name is part of the title – North Glasgow University Hospitals Trust – but where it isn’t and it isn’t obvious from the tagging of a story, add a location.

With regions, use “the” where it makes sense to do so, eg: the North West, London and the South East

M

Mental illness

Similar to when writing about disability, don’t define people by their illness/condition, so don’t refer to schizophrenics, the mentally ill etc. Use people with schizophrenia, mentally ill people, mental health service users etc. In headlines, where this is too cumbersome, where possible refer to the condition rather than those who have it; ie: schizophrenia, mental illness etc.

Mental health problems is a term that should largely be avoided as it can mean anything from a short spell of depression to long-term schizophrenia. The use of illness or disorder should probably be down to the discretion of the writer.

Avoid the term “survivor’” unless someone quotes themselves as such.

Use “died by suicide” or similar instead of “committed suicide”.

N

Names of organisations

Healthcare

Initial caps, so King’s College Hospital Foundation Trust, Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust. Then ‘the trust’, ‘the FT’.

NB: always leave NHS out of trust names. ‘And’ is preferred to ampersands.

Hospitals

Cap ‘H’ for Hospital when part of a title, eg: Royal Free Hospital

Local government (councils)

In HSJ councils are all upper case and unabbreviated on first mention, eg: Hackney London Borough Council, Birmingham City Council, Oxfordshire County Council.

NHS App

Note capital letter.

Numbers

One to nine are spelled out; figures for 10 upwards (eg: Number 10 is the prime minister’s residence).

Exceptions include subclassifications such as type 2 diabetes, 4 million, 2 per cent and clauses and sections of legislation.

Avoid starting a sentence with a figure; preferably rewrite the sentence or the number must be spelled out. The only exceptions to this are headlines and bullet points — this should still be avoided but is allowed if the alternative is tortuous.

Age

A man in his 80s.

We don’t usually give people’s ages, especially in routine news stories. But they may, on occasion, form part of the story (eg: a story about “the frail elderly”, reporting on a coroner’s report).

In particular, be careful if you’re supplying the age of women (in profiles and interviews especially) that you’re not unconsciously injecting a sexist tone into the piece.

Centuries

With figure, not written out, eg: 21st century healthcare.

Conversions

Don’t provide imperial conversions. In pieces about ‘abroad’, provide figures in local currencies with sterling conversion in brackets. Use sites such as xe.com (currency) and onlineconversion.com (everything else).

Currency (sterling)

Always use £ sign, except when sum is less than £1, eg: 90p.

For millions of pounds, the style is eg £25m.

If total is less than £1m, don’t use a fraction of a million, eg: £250,000, not £0.25m.

Dates

The sequence is day, month, year without commas, eg: 22 November 2024.

2022-23, not 2022/23.

Decades

1990s, not nineties or ’90s.

Decimals

Use numbers to no more than two decimal places – round up or down to the nearest figure.

Use common sense. Round up numbers in cases such as respondents to a survey (so 27 per cent, not 26.7 per cent), but if workers are offered a 2.74 per cent pay rise then the extra decimals are relevant.

Financial periods

Q1, Q2 etc.

2025/26 for financial years

2025-26 if a non-financial context

First, second

Not firstly, secondly.

Fractions

Words, not figures, eg: a third of…

Use hyphens where necessary, eg: two-thirds, three-quarters

Maximums and minimums

12-18 years rather than from 12 to 18 years. But not between 12 and 18 years or from 12-18 years, nor between 12-18 years.

More than/less than

“More/less than £10,000” not “over/under”

Millions and billions

£4m, £5bn, $13m. Closed up, with million and billion abbreviated. £1.5m, not £1^1/2m. £750,000, not £0.75m.

But million and billion in full in contexts other than money, eg: ‘Almost 3 million children are without health insurance in the US’ (again, the exception is headlines, where m and bn may be used when refer to figures other than money). Also, no need to spell out numbers one to nine when referring to millions and billions.

Per cent

Spell out (‘4 per cent’), only use ‘%’ in graphs/tables and headlines. Also, no need to spell out numbers one to nine when referring to percentages.

Please also note the difference between percentage and percentage points and make sure you are using the correct one.

Tables

Columns of figures must be done to the same number of decimal places. Make sure headings explain clearly what is in the table.

Time

Use 12-hour clock with am and pm closed up to figures, eg: 3pm, 3.30pm.

But: 12 noon, 12 midnight.

For ambulance response times, use 00:55:12 for hours, minutes, seconds and explain the method upon first mention. If there are no hours in the story say 42:13 (mins and secs), also with an explanation on first mention.

Weights and measures

Use standard abbreviations and close up to figures, eg: 42g. Don’t add ‘s’ for plurals.

42m sq, not 42m²

O

Opposition

Shadow health secretary Ed Argar, not opposition health spokesman. The other titles for the opposition team are shadow health minister, opposition health spokesman/woman (for junior ministers).

Oriented/preventive

Not orientated, not preventative

P

Peers and titles

Male members of the House of Lords are Lord rather than Baron or Earl, as in Lord Howe (note not Lord Freddie Howe).

Women will normally be known as Baroness, as in Baroness Jay (similarly, not Baroness Margaret Jay). However, where peers are universally known as Lady, rather than Baroness, stick to this.

Only include name of seat in exceptional cases where there is more than one well-known peer with the same name and there may be some ambiguity.

Dames

eg: Dame Deidre Hine, then Dame Deidre.

Knights

eg: Sir Liam Donaldson and then Sir Liam.

Preferred spellings

ageing, not aging

Focused, not focussed

silos, not siloes

Specialty, not speciality

Targeted, not targetted

Q

Quotes and pullquotes

We use double quote marks. Quotes within quotes become single. In accordance with standard practice, use square brackets for words inserted into quotes to clarify meaning but which were not actually said by the interviewee or author. However, when inserting an abbreviation into a quote (eg: because the organisation has been written out in full earlier in the copy), no square brackets are required.

For edited quotes use … not […], leaving a space after the ellipsis.

Don’t pepper text with tiny quotes — this applies in particular to news. They are often unnecessary and the words in question can usually be absorbed into text. The quote marks in a sentence like “The trust said it would look at the white paper ‘in due course’” are quite unnecessary. However, “The trust said the white paper was ‘absurd and unwieldy’” is a sensible use of quotes. ‘Absurd and unwieldy’ needs to be put within quote marks because it’s contentious and is too strong for our normal approach.

For headlines and pull quotes, use single quote marks. They should also be used in standfirsts, which are the summarising paragraphs at the start of comment and Interactive articles (these paragraphs are also characterised by the absence of a full stop). News stories do not have standfirsts, they simply have first paragraphs and require double quotes and full stops.

Pull quotes do not have to be verbatim from text but can be paraphrased, particularly with the large columnists’ quotes – although you must ensure you don’t alter any meanings. When people have been interviewed, pull quotes should be quoted speakers, not the writer’s prose.

Care Quality Commission ratings (eg “good”, “requires improvement”) should go in quote marks (double in copy, single in headlines), as should the domains, eg “well led”. If a story contains more than half a dozen ratings and / or domains, put the first one in double quotes and then omit quote marks from the rest.

R

References

As HSJ is not an academic journal, use hyperlinks for online content rather than footnotes.

Rude words

Use common sense. Usually acceptable – within reason – if it’s in a quote and is particularly expressive and idiomatic. If it’s gratuitous and adds nothing, get rid of it. Humorous pieces get most licence for risqué behaviour.

Do not use asterisks to censor swear words. The reader will know what the word is anyway.

S

Sexism

Don’t do it except for intentional comic effect. So be on your guard, in particular, against gratuitous references to women’s age and appearance.

Don’t call women ladies.

Use they rather than he if the gender is unknown or doesn’t matter.

Sources (news)

Our stories are expected to contain quotes and information unavailable elsewhere. So don’t pepper stories with ‘Mr Bloggs told HSJ’ in an effort to bring the air of a world exclusive to a routine story. Save it for occasions on which you’re dealing with a leaked document or a genuinely hot exclusive, for comment on a legally contentious piece, or to distinguish between what was said at a conference and what was said outside.

Self-referral should be used sparingly. So go easy on the ‘as HSJ revealed last week’ and suchlike. Use hyperlinks instead.

Spokespeople

Spokesperson only if gender is not known. So, spokeswoman Karen White said… A spokesperson said…

T

Tenses (quotes)

News

Past.

eg: Mr Streeting admitted the white paper was a load of cobblers.

For stories from conferences, use the past tense. And be careful to distinguish between what someone said as a speaker at the conference and what they said to us outside the conference, so say, Mr Bloggs told HSJ…

News analysis, opinion pieces, comment pieces

Present.

eg: Mr Burnham admits the white paper is a load of cobblers.

Surveys

When writing about the content of reports and surveys, use the present tense. But direct quotes from survey responses should be past tense

eg: “Forty per cent of managers believe the NHS will not remain free at the point of delivery. One respondent said: ‘I don’t believe it ever was.’”

That

“That” is often unnecessary. Please think carefully before writing it.

However, it can be a necessary buffer in sentences. Here are two examples from unedited HSJ copy:

This was a confusing sentence: “Concern remains emerging and more transmissible variants of the Omicron strain may drive a fifth covid wave.”

Concern remains emerging? A head scratcher. A “that” would have made it clear: “Concern remains that emerging and more transimissible variants of the Omicron strain…”

And without a “that”, this sentence sounds like the letter is warning staff: “The letter warned staff who are willing to do extra hours are choosing to work at local private hospitals.” But use “that” and voilà: “The letter warned that staff who are willing to…”

That and which

“That” defines, “which” informs. So: “The guidelines that the BMA released focus on patient safety, while the previous guidelines, which were issued last year, focused on staff training.”

Transgender, trans

Where relevant, use transgender at first mention, thereafter trans, and only as an adjective: transgender person, trans person, trans woman, trans man; never “transgendered person” or “a transgender”. Avoid using the term transsexual unless someone specifically identifies as such.

Tsar / czar