How to choose an aesthetics clinic: what to check before you book

The questions I am asked most often about safety are asked in the wrong order. They arrive after the treatment, when something has not gone to plan, and the person sitting in front of me is trying to establish — retrospectively — who treated them, what was used, and who is responsible now. Almost every one of those questions could have been answered in two minutes before the appointment was ever made.

This is not a piece about which clinic to choose. It is a piece about what to ask, so that you can make that decision yourself and be confident in it. The checks below are the ones I would want a member of my own family to run, whichever clinic they were considering, and any competent provider will answer all six without hesitation.

1. Who prescribes, and have they met you?

Anti-wrinkle injections are prescription-only medicines in the UK. That means a qualified prescriber — a doctor, dentist, nurse prescriber or pharmacist prescriber — must assess you and write the prescription for you personally.

The check is simple: ask who the prescriber is, and whether they will see you before the medicine is prescribed. Remote prescribing for injectable cosmetic medicines, where a prescriber signs off on someone they have never assessed, sits outside accepted professional standards. It is worth knowing which arrangement you are walking into.

You can also verify a clinician yourself. Doctors appear on the GMC register, nurses on the NMC register, dentists on the GDC register, all searchable in under a minute, all free. A clinician who lists their registration number publicly is inviting you to do exactly that. Mine is on my profile page.

2. Who is actually holding the needle?

A prescriber being involved is not the same as a prescriber treating you. These are two separate questions, and the answer to the first is sometimes used to imply an answer to the second.

Ask plainly: who will be in the room, what are their qualifications, and how long have they been performing this specific treatment? Not aesthetics in general — this treatment. A practitioner who is excellent at skin health may not be the right person for a filler in the midface, and a good clinic will tell you that rather than accommodate you.

At REGEN, I carry out all injectable treatments personally, and our therapists carry out the skin and wellness treatments they are trained and insured for. You can see who does what on Meet the Team. The point is not that this is the only workable model — it is that you should know the model before you book, not after.

3. Insurance — and what it actually covers

Every clinic will say it is insured. The useful question is narrower: is the specific practitioner insured for the specific treatment you are having, at this premises?

Medical aesthetic indemnity is written practitioner by practitioner and procedure by procedure. A therapist added to a clinic's schedule last month for facials is not automatically covered for microneedling. It is entirely reasonable to ask for confirmation, and a well-run clinic will not find the question rude — we keep our own schedule current precisely so it can be answered.

4. What happens if something goes wrong?

This is the question that separates a considered practice from a confident one, and it is the one people are most reluctant to ask.

Complications are uncommon, but they are not theoretical. Bruising and swelling are ordinary. Infection, nodules, and — rarely, with dermal filler — vascular occlusion, where filler compromises the blood supply to an area of skin, are not. Vascular occlusion is a medical emergency and is treated with hyaluronidase, an enzyme that dissolves hyaluronic-acid filler. It has to be available on site, and the person treating you has to be trained and prepared to use it immediately.

So ask three things. Does the clinic hold hyaluronidase on site and have an emergency protocol for occlusion? Who do you contact out of hours, and how quickly will a clinician — not a receptionist — call you back? And is there a written complaints procedure you can read before you commit? Ours is published at complaints and feedback, which means you can read it now rather than requesting it in a difficult moment.

A clinic that answers these calmly and specifically has thought about the bad day. That is the reassurance you are buying.

5. The premises

Injectable treatment belongs in a clinical environment: a dedicated treatment room, hard surfaces that can be properly cleaned, a sharps bin, a hand-wash basin, single-use needles opened in front of you, and product drawn from a sealed, labelled vial you are welcome to see.

Mobile and domestic settings are common in this industry, and I would apply more scrutiny to them, not less — largely because the emergency answer in section four becomes much harder to deliver in a living room. Our London practice is a fixed clinical premises in Fitzrovia, and the address is published openly on the London clinic page for the straightforward reason that you should know where you are going, and who else knows you are there.

6. Consent, records and the pace of the conversation

Consent is not a form handed over with a pen while you sit in the chair. Done properly it is a conversation: what is proposed, what it involves, the realistic range of outcomes, the risks, the alternatives — including doing nothing — and what the follow-up looks like.

There are two markers I would treat as significant. The first is time: a clinic that offers a cooling-off period between consultation and treatment for anything meaningful is protecting your decision, not delaying its own income. The second is a willingness to decline. Any clinician who has never told a prospective client that a treatment is not right for them is either extraordinarily fortunate in their enquiries, or not assessing very hard.

Pressure is the clearest warning sign in this industry. Time-limited pricing on a medical procedure, a discount that expires if you leave the room, package deals on prescription medicines — none of these belong in a clinical decision.

How this fits the way we work

All six checks describe the same underlying thing: a clinic that assesses before it treats. That is the first stage of the REGEN Method, which we call Reveal — a proper assessment of the skin, the concern and the goal, before anyone decides what, if anything, should be done about it.

It is also why the consultation is a distinct appointment rather than a preamble to a treatment already assumed. You can read what happens in one, and book it, on the Reveal Consultation page — and you should feel entirely free to take the answers away and think about them.

Frequently asked questions

Do anti-wrinkle injections require a prescription in the UK?

Yes. Botulinum toxin is a prescription-only medicine, so a qualified prescriber must assess you and prescribe for you personally before treatment.

How can I check a practitioner's qualifications?

Search the public registers: the GMC for doctors, the NMC for nurses, the GDC for dentists, and the GPhC for pharmacists. All are free and take a minute. Registration with a voluntary standards body such as Save Face is a further indicator, as it involves an inspection of the clinic and the clinician.

Is it rude to ask a clinic about insurance and complications?

No. It is a normal, expected question, and the answer tells you a great deal about how the clinic is run. Any provider who responds defensively has given you useful information.

What is a vascular occlusion, and why does it keep coming up?

It is a rare but serious complication of dermal filler, where the blood supply to an area of skin is compromised. It needs immediate treatment, which is why any clinic offering filler should hold hyaluronidase on site and have a clear emergency protocol.

Should the same person consult and treat me?

Not necessarily, but you should know in advance who will do each, and both should be appropriately qualified and insured for their part. What matters is that the arrangement is transparent before you book.

How long should I take to decide?

As long as you need. For anything involving a prescription medicine or an injectable, a gap between consultation and treatment is good practice, and a clinic that encourages one is behaving properly.

If you would like your skin assessed properly before anything is recommended, that is precisely what a Reveal Consultation is for.

Dr Chris Founder and Medical Director, REGEN Clinic

This article is general information and not individual medical advice. Suitability for any treatment depends on your medical history and an in-person assessment, and individual results vary.