Method · provenance · correction
Evidence should be easy to inspect — including evidence that challenges our own position.
HCPC&Me's research standard is designed to separate source fact, interpretation, hypothesis and lived experience.
Source hierarchy
Priority is given to primary legislation and rules, court and tribunal judgments, independent oversight, regulator datasets and publications, public-sector statistics, peer-reviewed research and credible open academic repositories. Commentary can provide context but should not substitute for stronger evidence where stronger evidence exists.
Claim-to-source discipline
Material factual claims should be traceable to a source. Dates and reporting periods should be visible where regulatory performance can change over time.
Counter-evidence
Where the same source records improvement, adequate performance or uncertainty, that evidence should be shown alongside criticism rather than omitted because it weakens a preferred narrative.
Individual experience
Member accounts can be important evidence of experience and can generate research questions. They are not automatically evidence that a systemic claim is true.
Comparisons and statistics
Comparisons should expose denominators, sample sizes and material limitations. Correlation should not be presented as causation, and outcome differences should not be attributed to demographic or procedural factors without appropriate analysis.
Corrections
Material factual errors should be corrected visibly with a date and explanation rather than silently overwritten.
Research still in development
Where analysis is exploratory, HCPC&Me should label it as exploratory. A future analyser must display uncertainty and missing evidence rather than produce a false deterministic verdict.