How to choose an aesthetic clinic in Glasgow

Start from what the law does and does not require

Most people assume that anyone injecting a face in the UK must be licensed to do it. That assumption is wrong, and the gap it leaves is the single most important thing to understand before you book anything.

Botulinum toxin is a prescription-only medicine. It must be prescribed for you individually by a qualified prescriber, and the professional regulators are clear that prescribing for cosmetic injection without a face-to-face assessment is not acceptable practice. That is a genuine legal constraint, and it is why the prescriber question is the first one to ask.

Dermal fillers are different. In the UK they are regulated as medical devices, not medicines. There is no prescription requirement and, at present, no general licence needed to inject them. A person with no clinical training can lawfully buy filler and inject it into your face. Legislation to introduce a licensing scheme for non-surgical cosmetic procedures in England exists on the statute book but has not been brought into force, and the Scottish Government has consulted separately on the same problem. Until something changes, the safeguard is you.

The product is regulated. The person holding it, in most cases, is not.

What Healthcare Improvement Scotland registration means

Scotland has a mechanism that England does not, and it is worth knowing precisely what it covers. Independent clinics in Scotland where the service is provided by a doctor, dentist, nurse, midwife or dental care professional must register with Healthcare Improvement Scotland, and registered services are inspected.

The important detail is who falls outside it. A practitioner who is not one of those regulated healthcare professionals is not caught by the requirement, which means the clinic they work from may have no external inspection of any kind. Two premises a few doors apart on the same Glasgow high street can be operating under entirely different regimes.

So the question is not simply whether a clinic mentions Healthcare Improvement Scotland on its website. It is whether the clinic is registered, and if it is not, which category it falls into and why. Registration status can be checked independently rather than taken on trust.

The five checks that matter most

1. Verify the individual with their regulator

Ask for the practitioner's full name, their professional registration and their registration number. Then check it yourself on the regulator's own website: the General Medical Council for doctors, the Nursing and Midwifery Council for nurses, the General Dental Council for dentists and dental care professionals, and the General Pharmaceutical Council for pharmacists. A registration number that is offered without hesitation is a good sign in itself.

If the practitioner holds no clinical registration, that is not automatically disqualifying for every treatment, but it changes what they can safely do and what they can prescribe. It is a fact you are entitled to know before you decide.

2. Establish who prescribes, and whether you will meet them

For any prescription-only medicine, including botulinum toxin and the hyaluronidase used to dissolve filler, there must be a prescriber who has assessed you. If nobody with prescribing rights is in the room, ask directly how the prescription was written. There is no satisfactory answer that involves a form you filled in online.

3. Ask about complications before you ask about price

The question is simple: what is your written complications protocol, and who do I contact at nine o'clock on a Sunday evening? You are listening for a specific answer, a named route and evidence that this has been thought about in advance. For filler, add: is hyaluronidase held on these premises, who prescribes it, and who administers it?

4. Confirm indemnity insurance for this specific procedure

Medical indemnity is not automatic and policies exclude specific procedures. Ask what cover is held and whether it covers the exact treatment being proposed. A practitioner who is properly insured will answer without discomfort.

5. Read the consent process, not the consent form

Good practice separates consultation from treatment, gives you written information, allows a cooling-off period, and does not treat you on the same day for anything significant if you have not been seen before. Consent signed in a corridor while someone waits with a syringe is not consent in any meaningful sense.

Warning signs that should end the conversation

• A price for a named prescription-only medicine advertised publicly, which is not permitted under the Human Medicines Regulations 2012.
• A discount that expires when you leave the room, or pressure to decide today.
• Treatment offered at a home, a hotel, a party or a pop-up event.
• Group bookings with a free treatment for the organiser.
• Refusal or reluctance to give a registration number.
• No prescriber present for a prescription-only medicine.
• No hyaluronidase on site for filler treatment.
• Before-and-after photographs with different lighting, angle, expression or make-up.
• Any guarantee of a specific result.
• Reluctance to discuss complications, or dismissal of them as things that happen elsewhere.
• A practitioner who has never declined to treat anyone.

Questions to take into the consultation

Print these or keep them on your phone. A practitioner who welcomes them is the one you want.

1. What is your clinical registration and registration number?
2. Is this clinic registered with Healthcare Improvement Scotland? If not, why not?
3. Who is prescribing my treatment, and are they assessing me today?
4. What specific product are you using, why that one, and how much?
5. What are the risks specific to me and to this area of my face?
6. What is your complications protocol and out-of-hours contact?
7. Is hyaluronidase held on site, and who can administer it?
8. What indemnity cover do you hold for this procedure?
9. Is a review appointment included, and when?
10. What would you decline to do for me, and why?
11. What should I do if I am unhappy with the result?
12. How will you photograph me, and can I have copies?

How to think about a consultation that feels wrong

You are allowed to leave. You are allowed to take the consent form home and read it. You are allowed to say that you want to think about it, and a practitioner who reacts badly to that has told you everything you need to know.

Deposits are common and reasonable. Pressure is not. If you feel rushed, if the conversation keeps returning to a package rather than to your face, or if your questions are being handled as objections rather than as questions, that is information about the clinic and not about you.

There are many careful, well-trained practitioners working in Glasgow. The point of this guide is not to make you suspicious of all of them. It is to give you the specific checks that let you tell them apart, because the sector will not do it for you.

If something goes wrong

• Contact the treating practitioner immediately. Time matters enormously with vascular complications after filler.
• If you cannot reach them and the problem is urgent, contact NHS 111 in Scotland or attend an emergency department. Take the name of any product used with you.
• Sudden changes in vision after facial filler are an emergency. Do not wait.
• Suspected side effects of a medicine or a device can be reported to the MHRA through the Yellow Card scheme by patients as well as clinicians.
• Concerns about a registered professional can be raised with their regulator. Concerns about a registered independent clinic in Scotland can be raised with Healthcare Improvement Scotland.
• Misleading advertising can be reported to the Advertising Standards Authority.

Keep a written record of dates, products and what you were told. It is far easier to gather this at the time than months later.