At Fit Certify, our Code of Practice defines the medical, ethical, and operational standards that guide everything we do. It outlines how our licensed doctors assess athlete health, protect personal data, and uphold the highest levels of professionalism in line with international sports and exercise medicine governance.
Led by our Medical Director, Dr Simon Shaw, MBChB, MD, PhD, MSc (Sports & Exercise Medicine), this Code demonstrates our commitment to accuracy, transparency, and accountability — ensuring every certificate we issue is safe, clinically robust, and trusted by sporting organisations worldwide.
Last reviewed: October 2025
Next scheduled review: October 2026
At Fit Certify, we believe that athletes deserve medical services built on trust, transparency, and clinical integrity — not just convenience. Our Code of Practice defines how we deliver that promise every day.
As technology makes remote healthcare more accessible, our responsibility is to ensure that speed never compromises safety. Every certificate we issue is reviewed by a licensed sports and exercise medicine doctor, trained to assess fitness for endurance and competitive events with care and precision.
This Code brings together the principles that guide how we work: rigorous identity and documentation checks, clear medical reasoning, and responsible handling of any potential risks to athlete health. It also reinforces our commitment to protecting confidentiality, ensuring informed decision-making, and supporting ongoing care through collaboration with an athlete’s usual doctor or healthcare provider.
Our framework has been developed under the direction of Dr Simon Shaw, MBChB, MD, PhD, MSc (Sports & Exercise Medicine), our Medical Director, who oversees the quality and governance of all clinical processes across our international network. It ensures that Fit Certify’s medical service remains consistent, ethical, and safe — wherever our athletes are based.
At Fit Certify, clinical governance is at the heart of everything we do. It ensures that every medical certificate we issue is accurate, evidence-based, and completed with the same level of professional care you would expect from an in-person consultation.
Our medical processes are designed and supervised by our Medical Director, Dr Simon Shaw, MBChB, MD, PhD, MSc (Sports & Exercise Medicine), who provides clinical leadership across our international network. Under his guidance, each doctor follows a unified set of standards developed to maintain consistency, safety, and fairness for every athlete we support.
Every clinician within the Fit Certify network holds active medical registration in their country of practice. Before joining our team, doctors undergo a comprehensive verification process, which includes confirmation of:
Clinical quality is maintained through a multi-layered oversight system that includes:
All Fit Certify doctors use the same clinical criteria and structured assessment forms to ensure uniformity in decision-making, regardless of where the doctor is based. This approach guarantees that a certificate issued in one country reflects the same level of scrutiny, medical judgement, and ethical consideration as any other across our network.
We are committed to learning and evolving. Audit findings, feedback, and new medical evidence inform regular updates to our protocols. This cycle of continuous improvement keeps Fit Certify aligned with the latest standards in athlete safety, exercise medicine, and remote clinical assessment.
Every Fit Certify doctor works within a clear framework of ethical and professional values that ensure integrity, fairness, and respect in all medical interactions. These values are grounded in international standards of good medical practice and adapted to reflect the realities of remote sports certification.
We are committed to honesty, transparency, and impartiality in every medical assessment. Our doctors base their decisions solely on the information provided, their clinical judgement, and the athlete’s safety — never on commercial, financial, or external influence.
Each certificate represents an independent medical opinion. If, after reviewing the information, a doctor determines that further evidence or clarification is required, the process is paused until that information is provided. No certificate is ever issued unless the reviewing doctor is satisfied that the athlete is medically fit to participate.
All Fit Certify clinicians act with full clinical autonomy. While our internal systems support efficiency and consistency, doctors retain independent responsibility for their medical opinions and the final decision on whether a certificate can be issued. Clinical integrity always takes precedence over convenience or demand.
Protecting athlete confidentiality is a core professional duty. All personal and medical information shared with Fit Certify is handled in strict confidence and stored securely in compliance with the UK GDPR, HIPAA, and equivalent international data protection laws.
Access to athlete information is restricted to authorised members of the Fit Certify clinical team who require it to carry out their professional duties. No information is ever shared with third parties without explicit consent, except where legally required to protect patient safety.
Our doctors adhere to recognised medical-ethical codes, including:
We hold ourselves accountable to these standards at every stage of the medical process, ensuring that Fit Certify remains a trusted, medically responsible partner for athletes around the world.
Every medical certificate issued by Fit Certify follows a structured, standardised review process designed to ensure accuracy, fairness, and athlete safety. Our clinical framework allows each doctor to make a consistent, evidence-based decision while maintaining professional independence and judgement.
All applications are submitted through a structured medical questionnaire, developed in line with international sports and exercise medicine guidelines. This ensures that every athlete provides the same core information, including:
This structured approach allows our doctors to identify key health risks efficiently while ensuring that no critical information is missed.
Each application is reviewed by a licensed doctor who evaluates the information provided in the context of the specific sporting event and its demands. The doctor assesses whether there are any medical contraindications to endurance or competitive participation, with particular attention to:
Where required, doctors may request additional documentation, such as a GP summary, diagnostic reports, or recent investigation results, before completing their review.
All Fit Certify doctors work within a unified clinical framework that defines the criteria for medical clearance. This ensures that the same clinical reasoning is applied across our international network, providing consistency and fairness for athletes worldwide. However, each doctor retains full clinical discretion and may decline or defer a certificate if any uncertainty remains about an athlete’s medical fitness.
Fit Certify’s service focuses solely on medical fitness assessment for sports participation. We do not diagnose, prescribe, or provide treatment for medical conditions. If a potential health concern is identified, the reviewing doctor will advise the athlete to seek further evaluation or management from their usual GP or healthcare provider before proceeding.
Every completed certificate is electronically signed by the reviewing doctor and stored securely within our system for audit and verification purposes. Sample cases are periodically reviewed under our clinical audit programme to ensure that decisions remain consistent, evidence-based, and aligned with our governance framework.
Protecting the privacy and security of every athlete’s information is fundamental to Fit Certify’s clinical and ethical standards. We handle all data — from medical questionnaires to identity documents — with the same level of care and confidentiality you would expect from any in-person medical practice.
All medical information shared with Fit Certify is handled in strict confidence. Only authorised clinical and administrative staff directly involved in your assessment have access to your data. Every team member receives dedicated training in medical confidentiality, privacy law, and digital security protocols.
We employ industry-standard encryption and access controls to protect data throughout its lifecycle:
Our information security measures align with internationally recognised frameworks, including ISO/IEC 27001 (information security management) and HIPAA-equivalent safeguards for protecting personal health data.
Fit Certify operates in full compliance with:
Our policies are reviewed regularly under the direction of our Medical Director and legal advisors to maintain alignment with evolving healthcare data standards worldwide.
We retain medical information only for as long as required to meet clinical, legal, or operational obligations. Once that period ends, data is securely deleted or anonymised according to medical record retention standards.
Athletes may at any time:
Requests can be made through our Contact page and are handled promptly by our Data Protection Lead.
Our approach combines ethical medical governance with internationally recognised data protection standards, ensuring every Fit Certify assessment is not only clinically sound but also handled with the highest respect for privacy, confidentiality, and digital security.
At Fit Certify, we believe that athlete safety and trust depend on open, respectful collaboration between doctor and patient.
Our process is designed to protect your wellbeing while ensuring that medical decisions are made fairly, transparently, and with your full understanding. This section outlines what every athlete can expect from us — and what we ask in return to maintain the integrity of the certification process.
When applying for a Fit Certify medical certificate, you have the right to:
These rights reflect our commitment to treating athletes as informed partners in the certification process, not passive recipients of a form.
To help us maintain the highest clinical and ethical standards, athletes are expected to:
Our goal is to create a process where athletes and doctors work together to protect health while enabling performance.
By respecting these rights and responsibilities, we ensure that every Fit Certify certificate is not only valid and compliant — but issued within a framework of honesty, professionalism, and mutual trust.
At Fit Certify, we value transparency and open communication. Every athlete has the right to share feedback — whether positive, constructive, or critical — and to have concerns taken seriously. We view feedback not as criticism but as an essential part of maintaining quality, improving systems, and strengthening trust between athletes and clinicians.
If you are dissatisfied with any part of your experience — from the application process to the medical review or communication received — you can contact us directly via our Contact page or by emailing hello@fitcertify.com.
To help us address your concern efficiently, please include:
All complaints are logged securely in our internal system and handled in confidence.
We aim to make our process clear, fair, and timely:
If a delay is expected (for example, when external verification is required), we will keep you informed and provide an updated timeline.
Complaints involving clinical judgement or medical decision-making are automatically escalated to our Medical Director, Dr Simon Shaw, MBChB, MD, PhD, MSc (Sports & Exercise Medicine).He reviews all relevant documentation, may consult with the doctor involved, and ensures that the response is consistent with professional medical standards and Fit Certify’s governance framework.
Where necessary, recommendations are issued to prevent recurrence or to strengthen internal protocols.
Every piece of feedback — whether from athletes, doctors, or event organisers — contributes to our continuous improvement. We routinely:
This cycle of reflection and improvement ensures that Fit Certify continues to meet the highest standards of medical integrity, efficiency, and athlete care.
We take all concerns seriously, act on them promptly, and use every opportunity to improve. By providing clear channels for communication and independent oversight of clinical matters, Fit Certify ensures that every athlete’s voice is heard and that our service remains accountable, fair, and trustworthy.
At Fit Certify, we believe that medical excellence depends on continuous learning. Sports and exercise medicine is a dynamic field — new research, technologies, and best practices emerge every year. To maintain the highest standards of care and ensure every assessment reflects current medical understanding, all Fit Certify doctors actively engage in structured Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and collaborative learning.
Each doctor within our network participates in regular CPD programmes, which may include accredited courses, workshops, and professional seminars in areas such as:
Doctors are encouraged to maintain personal development portfolios, recording their learning outcomes and reflecting on how new knowledge influences clinical decision-making.
This ensures that every certificate is issued by a clinician whose understanding of sports medicine and athlete safety is current, evidence-based, and relevant to modern endurance sport.
Fit Certify fosters a strong culture of shared learning through:
This collaborative model ensures that knowledge gained by one doctor benefits the entire network.
Our medical governance framework is designed to evolve alongside the field. We continually monitor:
By aligning with these evolving standards, Fit Certify ensures that its doctors remain not only compliant — but leaders in responsible, safe, and ethical sports medical certification.
Continuous professional development is more than a requirement — it’s a reflection of our values. Every Fit Certify doctor is expected to approach their work with curiosity, accountability, and a commitment to lifelong learning. This culture of ongoing improvement ensures that our athletes receive medical assessments informed by the latest science, best practice, and shared clinical wisdom from our international team.
Transparency is central to the trust that athletes, partners, and regulators place in Fit Certify. We believe that accountability is not only a professional duty — it’s an essential part of safe, ethical, and modern medical practice.
Our commitment to transparency extends beyond words. We clearly outline how our doctors are verified, how decisions are made, and how feedback is handled. Every aspect of our process — from clinical review to data protection — is designed to be open, auditable, and consistent with international healthcare governance standards.
Fit Certify operates under a structured governance framework led by our Medical Director, Dr Simon Shaw, MBChB, MD, PhD, MSc (Sports & Exercise Medicine). All clinical policies, risk management procedures, and operational standards are reviewed on a scheduled basis to ensure they remain aligned with:
This regular oversight ensures our clinical processes evolve in step with the wider medical community and the expectations of our athletes.
Our Code of Practice is formally reviewed at least once every year — or sooner if significant regulatory or clinical developments occur. The review process includes input from:
Any revisions are documented internally and reflected immediately on this page. The review date below confirms when this version was last updated.
Fit Certify will continue to operate with honesty, openness, and respect — welcoming feedback, learning from experience, and sharing our standards publicly. By publishing this Code, we reaffirm our commitment to professional integrity, athlete safety, and continuous improvement in every medical assessment we delive