A clinic website is a designed object with a purpose, and the purpose is a booking. That is not a criticism. What follows is not a way to catch anyone out, it is a way to extract the information that the design is not organised around, which is usually the information you need.
The method is simple: read it in reverse order of prominence. Start at the footer.
Start at the footer
A UK business trading through a website generally has to identify itself. If it is a limited company, its registered name, company number and registered office should be findable, and you can then check it on the Companies House register for free. That gives you the incorporation date, the filing history and the directors.
The date matters less as a quality signal than people think, but a company incorporated three months ago, advertising ten years of experience, is a discrepancy worth asking about. An absent company identity, no address of any kind and only a mobile number is a different kind of signal: it means there is very little to complain to.
The team page, and the specific words used
Read the team page for registration rather than for warmth. You are looking for a full name, a professional title and ideally a registration number. What you often find instead is a first name, a job title that sounds clinical but is not a registration, and a list of training courses attended.
Some phrases to notice. Aesthetic practitioner, aesthetician, cosmetic consultant, skin specialist and advanced injector are descriptions, not registrations. Nobody polices them. A person using any of these may be a consultant plastic surgeon or may have completed a one day course, and the phrase itself does not distinguish between the two.
Conversely, doctor, dentist, nurse, midwife, pharmacist and independent prescriber are checkable. If one is used, check it, using the four public registers.
Claims that are advertising problems, not just marketing
UK advertising is governed by the CAP Code, enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority, and it applies to clinic websites and social media as much as to paid ads. Several claims that appear constantly in this sector sit poorly with it.
- Absolute safety claims. Completely safe, no risks, zero downtime as an unqualified statement. Every injectable procedure carries risk, and a claim that denies it is misleading.
- Prescription only medicines named in advertising. Advertising prescription only medicines to the public is prohibited in the UK. This is why compliant clinics write about anti wrinkle treatment rather than naming the toxin brand. A site that names the brand loudly in its advertising is not being transparent, it is breaching a medicines rule.
- Before and after photographs used as proof. Permitted in principle, heavily constrained in practice. See what the rules require.
- Clinically proven, without a citation. If the proof exists, it can be named. If it cannot be named, the claim is doing work it has not earned.
- Testimonials that make efficacy claims. A patient quote does not license a claim the clinic could not make itself.
What you are entitled to at this stage
- To be given the identity of the business you are contracting with, including a company name and address.
- To advertising that is not misleading, under the CAP Code enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority.
- To ask for a written complications and correction policy before booking.
- To challenge unfair contract terms under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
- To report a misleading claim to the ASA yourself, free, without being a customer.
The ASA accepts complaints from members of the public about marketing they have seen. You do not have to have bought anything.
The four absences that matter most
A complications policy. Look for a page describing what happens if something goes wrong: who sees you, how quickly, at whose cost. Almost nobody publishes this. The ones who do have thought about it.
A correction and refund position. Prices are published enthusiastically. The price of fixing a result you dislike is published almost never. Ask, and ask in writing.
A named prescriber arrangement. For treatments involving prescription only medicines, the site should be able to tell you who prescribes and whether they assess patients in person.
A complaints route. A named person, an address and a timescale. Its absence does not mean complaints are ignored, but it means no process has been written down, which is the same thing at the moment you need it.
A site with dozens of treatment pages, a booking widget on every one, and no page anywhere describing what happens if a treatment goes wrong. The proportion of the site given to selling versus to aftercare is itself a disclosure.
Reviews, ratings and the loop they create
Reviews on a clinic's own site are curated by definition. Third party review platforms are better but carry their own problems: incentivised reviews, filtered collection where only satisfied patients are asked, and the simple fact that complications often appear weeks after the review was written.
This is one reason this publication does not compile ratings of clinics. A star average assembled from self selected reviewers is not an assessment, and presenting it as one would mislead. We explain the position in why we do not rank clinics.
Reading a price list properly
Look for the unit. Filler priced per millilitre is not comparable with filler priced per area or per syringe. Toxin priced per area is not comparable with toxin priced per unit, and area definitions vary between clinics. Look for what the price excludes: review appointments, top ups, and the treatment of a complication.
Look also for pricing that is unusually low. Injectable products, indemnity, prescriber time and proper aftercare have costs that do not vary much between businesses. A price well below the market has to be explained by something, and the candidate explanations are all things you would want to know about.
The terms and conditions
Almost nobody reads these, and they contain the parts of the relationship that are actually enforceable. Look for the deposit policy, the cancellation policy, whether unused sessions in a package expire, whether the clinic reserves the right to substitute the practitioner, and any clause requiring you to raise complaints within a short window. Terms can be challenged as unfair under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, but it is easier to read them first.
The reading order, in short
Footer, then terms, then team, then complaints, then complications, then prices, and only then the treatment pages. By the time you reach the photographs you will already know whether the business has the infrastructure to look after you, and the photographs will not change that answer.