Background
One point was investigated and resolved informally with the advertiser’s agreement to make changes. The homepage would be amended to not imply Detox Today were the only treatment provider to be insured, have treatment liability and be disclosure certified.
Ad description
The website homepage, www.detoxtoday.co.uk, for Detox Today, an alcohol addiction help and support service, seen in March 2025. The website included the claims: “Medical & Psychological Addiction Treatments. We offer alcohol addiction recovery services including addiction advice, how to get well, what to do for family members, medical assessments, interventions, home alcohol detox plans, online alcoholism counselling, sober coaching and sobriety maintenance services including abstinence medications”; “Organise Medical Treatments”; “We know that relapse can be part of the recovery journey, and we provide medical support to secondary and tertiary rehab units, and supported accommodation housing”; “Remote alcohol home detox service including addiction assessment, doctor consultation and prescription medications”; “We have a range of medical treatments to support abstinence and recovery including disulfiram, campral & naltrexone”; and “We provide life-saving alcohol detox, alcohol rehab, counselling and sober services in the UK. Our medical and therapeutic teams are here to provide first-class addiction treatment to help individuals, families and organisations”. The Alcohol Detox at Home Treatment page also said. “Once the initial call and assessment is complete, we arrange a client call with our doctor”.
Issue
The complainant, a director of a drug and alcohol treatment charity, challenged whether the ad implied that the marketer provided registered medical treatment and therefore was misleading.
Response
Detox Today explained that as the result of contact from a separate organisation, changes had already been made to the website. They explained that Detox Today was staffed by one individual and offered remote private treatments to help people stop drinking. They offered therapy either in the context of home detox or independent of that. Those services did not need to be Care Quality Commission (CQC) registered.
Regarding the home detox service, they explained there were two main elements. The first would be the need for a doctor to prescribe medication and supervise the detox. They said they would put the client in contact with the doctor (who would be private but have the necessary registration) and any ongoing medical needs would be supervised by the doctor. Detox Today’s role would then be to provide therapy and support alongside the medical treatment.
Detox Today said they had no involvement with residential rehabs which had to be CQC registered. They said they were willing to make further changes to the website if necessary.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code stated marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.
The ASA noted that the Detox Today website did list the services offered by the advertiser, such as “in-person counselling, therapy, sober coaching & recovery support” and “Home detox for alcohol”. However, it also talked about “medical assessments”, “Medical Treatments” and “doctor consultation and prescription medications” (in the context of home alcohol detox). The website further named specific medications such as “disulfiram, campral & naltrexone” and “provide medical services”. They also used the term “our” when discussing medical and therapeutic teams and doctors, implying that such registered medical professionals were on the staff of Detox Today.
We understood Detox Today offered a range of services to consumers, including therapy and advice for alcohol addiction, and that the services they offered did not require them to be registered with the CQC. However, we further understood that Detox Today did work alongside registered medical professionals, such as GPs and psychiatrists, for instance in providing home detoxes. In such circumstances the roles by Detox Today and the registered professional, while complimentary, were completely separate. The doctor saw to the medical needs of the individual, by prescribing medication and assessing them medically, and Detox Today provided therapy or counselling around the individual’s alcohol addiction.
Taken as a whole, we considered that the website did not make a clear delineation between the services offered directly by Detox Today and those performed by third-party professionals. As a consequence, we considered consumers were likely to understand that Detox Today directly provided medical services and had medically qualified staff. The implication of claiming to offer such services was therefore that Detox Today had CQC registration; however, that was not the case. We concluded therefore that the website was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 3.1 (Misleading advertising).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Detox Today to ensure that their advertising did not imply that they employed staff who provided services where they needed to be CQC registered, if they did not.
