Our Story: HeliosCheck.com began with a delay nobody could justify
Ask ten women living with endometriosis how long it took to get a name for their pain and the answers share a shape: several years, several clinicians, and at least one appointment where they were told it was normal. UK audits have repeatedly put the average time from first symptom to confirmed endometriosis diagnosis at close to eight years. Polycystic ovary syndrome, adenomyosis and early perimenopause follow the same pattern — common, well described in the literature, and still routinely missed in the room.
The delay is rarely caused by missing medical knowledge. The guidance exists and it is public: the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists publishes it, NICE turns it into pathways, and the World Health Organization has spent years documenting how unevenly women’s symptoms are investigated across health systems. The bottleneck is the appointment itself: eight or nine minutes, one presenting complaint, and no realistic way to take the kind of history that makes a pattern visible.
So we removed that one constraint and rebuilt the consultation around it. Nothing about the idea is technologically clever. It is simply what a specialist appointment was always supposed to be — which is why our process is short to explain and our list of conditions is long.
8 years Typical wait for an endometriosis diagnosis What is different
Four things we do differently
None of these are innovations. They are the parts of a good consultation that get squeezed out first when a clinic is running twenty minutes behind — so we designed the service to protect them.
Specialist-led from end to end
Every consultation and every page on HeliosCheck.com is delivered or reviewed by a doctor on the specialist register in obstetrics and gynecology. There is no layer of generalist triage between you and the clinician who treats this condition for a living, and nothing here is written to a keyword brief by someone who has never taken a history.
Traceable to a named guideline
When we recommend something we tell you which body says so — ACOG, RCOG, NICE, the NHS or WHO — and link you to the source so you can read it yourself. Where the evidence is genuinely unsettled, and in women’s health a great deal of it still is, we say so rather than manufacturing confidence we do not have.
Time measured in half-hours
Appointments run 30 to 45 minutes. That is long enough for a full menstrual, obstetric, surgical and family history, for the symptom you almost did not mention because it seemed unrelated, and for your questions at the end rather than in the doorway on the way out.
It does not end when the call does
You leave with a written summary: what was discussed, what we think is most likely, what would change that view, and what happens next. Fourteen days of follow-up messaging with the same clinician is included, so the plan survives contact with real life.
How we decide what to put in front of you
Health information is easy to publish and hard to publish responsibly. Our rule is simple: nothing appears on HeliosCheck.com until a named specialist has checked it against current guidance and is willing to have their name on it, with the date they last read it.
- Written or reviewed by a registered specialist, named and dated on the page
- Checked against ACOG, RCOG, NICE, NHS or WHO guidance, with the source linked
- Re-read on a fixed twelve-month cycle, or sooner when a guideline is updated
- Corrections published openly, not edited away quietly
- No sponsored placements, affiliate links or paid product mentions — ever
The full process — who reviews what, how we handle the cases where two respected guidelines disagree, and how to flag something you believe is wrong — is set out in our editorial policy. Our medical disclaimer explains the line between general information and personal medical advice, and we hold that line carefully: a page can tell you what usually applies, but only a consultation can tell you what applies to you.
Guidance we work from
ACOG Obstetricians & Gynecologists RCOG Royal College, UK WHO World Health Organization NICE Clinical guidelines NHS Women’s health CDC Reproductive health Our specialists
What you can hold us to
Six promises that shape how every HeliosCheck.com consultation is run. They are also the things we would want said to us.
We will tell you when you need to be seen in person
Some questions cannot be answered without an examination, a swab or a scan. When that is the case we say so during the consultation and help you arrange it, instead of stretching a video call past what it can honestly do.
We will not promise you an outcome
No clinician can guarantee a cure, a pregnancy or a symptom-free year, and anyone who does should worry you. We give you the likely picture, the alternatives, and the odds as the evidence actually describes them.
We will keep what you tell us private
Consultations are encrypted, records are held under GDPR and HIPAA-aligned controls, and nothing reaches an employer, insurer or relative without your written instruction.
We will put it in writing
Memory is a poor medical record. Every appointment ends with a written summary you keep, so you can re-read it, share it with your own doctor, or bring it back to us in six months.
We will stay in our lane
We complement your regular doctor rather than replacing them, and we are not an emergency service. Where your care belongs with a local team, our job is to make that handover clearer, not to keep you here.
We will change our minds in public
Guidance moves. When a recommendation we have published stops matching current advice, we update the page, re-date it, and note what changed rather than pretending it always said that.
When not to wait for an appointment Online care is not the right route for urgent symptoms. Seek same-day medical help for bleeding that soaks through a pad or tampon every hour for two hours or more, severe pelvic or abdominal pain with fever, fainting, any bleeding after the menopause, or bleeding and one-sided pain in early pregnancy. If you feel severely unwell, contact your local emergency services. Read our full medical disclaimer. 2019 Practising online since 24,800+ Consultations delivered 38 min Average appointment length 96% Would recommend to a friend 01
Who We Are
HeliosCheck.com is a consultant-led women’s health practice — not a directory, not a symptom checker. Behind it is a deliberately small team: three registered specialists in obstetrics and gynecology, each with a defined subspecialty, supported by a small editorial and operations team. There is no call centre and no generalist triage layer. The clinician who reads your intake form is the clinician you speak to.
We are a remote-first practice serving patients across the UK and internationally, with a registered office in London. We accept no advertising, take no commission on referrals, and no commercial party has any say over clinical content.
What We Do
We do two things. First, private consultations: a 30–45 minute video or phone appointment with a consultant gynecologist, a written summary you keep, and 14 days of follow-up messaging with the same clinician. Second, a health library written and medically reviewed by those same specialists — so the free information and the paid advice come from one source and say the same thing.
- Screening, results interpretation and prevention planning
- Menstrual, hormonal, pelvic pain and vaginal health
- Fertility investigation and early pregnancy questions
- Perimenopause, menopause and long-term midlife health
See all services → Why you can trust this site
A trusted source of women’s health information
Every clinical page on HeliosCheck.com is written or reviewed by a named, registered specialist and carries the date it was last checked. Recommendations are mapped to published guidance from the bodies listed below, and we link the source so you can read it yourself. Where the evidence is genuinely unsettled, we say so rather than manufacturing confidence we do not have.
We publish corrections openly, carry no sponsored clinical content and take no advertising. Our full editorial policy sets out the review process, the evidence hierarchy we prefer, and how to report an error.
Bring us the question you have stopped asking
The one you were told was normal, or that you have never had long enough to explain properly. Book a consultation with a HeliosCheck.com gynecologist, or read what we cover first — both are reasonable places to start.
Book a consultation See what we cover
Still deciding? The FAQ answers the practical questions — fees, prescriptions, privacy and what happens if you need an in-person examination.
Who writes HeliosCheck.com content
Every guide on HeliosCheck.com is published under the HeliosCheck.com Editorial Team. The team writes and structures each article, checks it against current guidance from bodies such as ACOG, RCOG, NICE, WHO and the NHS, and has it reviewed by clinicians who specialise in obstetrics and gynecology before it goes live. Each article shows the date it was last reviewed, and the full process is set out in our editorial policy.