What a new practice can actually promise

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Why these two things come first

A practice registered a few weeks ago cannot offer a reputation, and pretending otherwise would be both dishonest and, under the rules governing what a doctor may say publicly, impermissible. Those rules exclude comparisons with other practitioners, claims of superiority, patient testimonials, success rates and promises about outcomes, which removes most of what a commercial page would contain. What remains is better anyway, because it is checkable: whether the obligations that attach to practising are actually in place from the first day.

The first of them is continuity of care, and Belgian law is explicit that it is a duty rather than a professional courtesy. A practitioner must ensure the continuity of the care they provide. When absent, that care must be taken over by a practitioner holding the required competence, and the patient record must be made accessible to the person taking over, so that care is not resumed by someone working without the information that matters. Participation in organised on-call arrangements forms part of the same obligation. For a patient deciding whether to register somewhere new, the real question is rarely how many years a doctor has been in practice; it is what happens on the day the doctor is not there, and that question has an answer that can be given now.

The second is the patient record, and its timescale is the part that surprises people. A record must be retained for at least thirty years after the last contact with the patient and may be kept for up to fifty. A note written at a first consultation may therefore be read by a clinician long after everyone present has forgotten the appointment, possibly by someone treating a condition that has not yet appeared. That is the argument for writing it properly from the opening week rather than from the point a practice feels settled, and it is also why the right of access and the right to a copy matter: the record is about the patient and is, in the ways the law provides, theirs to see. Around these sit the ordinary obligations that apply from day one regardless of how new a practice is, including acting only within competence and referring beyond it, informed consent given after being told purpose, risks, alternatives and cost, and professional secrecy protected by criminal law.