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Voluntary registers: what the JCCP and Save Face do and do not prove

What membership of the JCCP or Save Face actually involves, what checks each carries out, and the limits of a voluntary register.

The law and the regulators· Reviewed 2026-08-01·Published by Northbank Media
Index cabinet. Verification is an archival act before it is a clinical one.
Index cabinet. Verification is an archival act before it is a clinical one.
The short answer

The Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners and Save Face are voluntary registers for cosmetic practitioners. Both carry out entry checks that nobody is otherwise obliged to make, covering matters such as qualifications, indemnity, premises and complaints processes, and both hold accreditation from the Professional Standards Authority under its Accredited Registers programme. Neither is a statutory regulator. Removal from a voluntary register does not stop a person practising, because there is no statutory permission to withdraw.

In the absence of a statutory licensing scheme, two organisations have become the closest thing the sector has to a quality filter. Understanding what they do, and what they structurally cannot do, is useful whether or not you end up using them.

What they are

The Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners is a voluntary register and standards body for non surgical cosmetic practitioners, developed with input from professional and educational bodies. It publishes competency frameworks, standards and position statements, and maintains registers of practitioners and of education and training providers.

Save Face is an accredited register of practitioners and clinics that carries out its own assessment process, including visits, and publishes the criteria applied. It also collects and publishes reports from patients about poor experiences, which gives it a view of the sector that pure paper checks do not produce.

Both hold accreditation from the Professional Standards Authority under the Accredited Registers programme. That accreditation is meaningful: the PSA assesses the register itself against standards covering governance, entry requirements, complaints handling and the information given to the public.

CheckpointVerifying an accreditation claim
Search the accrediting body's own register, not the clinic's pageA logo is an image file. An entry is a record.
Check which procedures the entry coversSome registers record scope, which is more useful than a general listing.
Check whether the register is PSA accreditedThe Professional Standards Authority publishes the list of accredited registers.
Ask what the register checked at entryQualifications, indemnity, premises, prescribing and complaints handling are the usual items.
Keep doing the statutory register check anywayA voluntary entry supplements the GMC, GDC, NMC or GPhC check. It does not replace it.
If the answer is not thisIf an accreditation cannot be found on the accrediting body's own search, walk away from the claim.

What membership actually involves

The specifics differ between the two and change over time, so check each register's published criteria rather than relying on a summary. Broadly, entry processes in this space involve verifying professional registration where claimed, checking qualifications and training in the procedures offered, requiring evidence of indemnity that covers those procedures, requiring standards for premises and equipment, requiring a complaints process, and requiring prescribing arrangements to be compliant.

That list should look familiar. It is close to the list of questions this site asks readers to put to a provider themselves. The value of a voluntary register is that somebody has already asked them, and has seen the documents rather than heard the answers.

Your rights

What you are entitled to at this stage

  • To verify any accreditation claim on the accrediting body's own public register, free.
  • To ask what a register checked before admitting a practitioner.
  • To complain to a voluntary register about one of its members, and to be told how that complaint is handled.
  • To accurate marketing about accreditation, under the CAP Code, with misleading claims reportable to the ASA.
  • To check whether a register is accredited by the Professional Standards Authority.

A voluntary register can remove a member. It cannot stop them practising, because no licence is required.

The structural limit

A voluntary register cannot prevent anyone from practising. If a member is removed, they simply cease to be a member. In a sector where no licence is required, losing a voluntary accreditation removes a marketing asset and nothing else. Contrast that with a statutory regulator, where removal from the register ends the ability to practise in the profession lawfully.

This is not a criticism of the registers. It is the consequence of the statutory gap they exist to mitigate, and both organisations have argued publicly for that gap to be closed.

A second limit is coverage. Registration is voluntary, so a great many practitioners are not on either register, including some who would readily meet the criteria and have simply not applied. Absence from a voluntary register is therefore weaker evidence than presence on one.

Red flag

Accreditation logos on a website that do not correspond to an entry you can find on the accrediting body's own register. Verify the claim on the register itself, not on the clinic's page. A logo is an image file.

How to use them properly

Treat a voluntary register entry as a completed set of checks rather than as a recommendation. It tells you that qualifications, indemnity and prescribing arrangements were verified by somebody at the point of entry. It does not tell you that this practitioner is right for you, that their aesthetic judgement matches yours, or that they will manage a complication well.

Verify the entry on the register's own search rather than on the clinic's website. Check the date and the scope: some registers record which procedures a practitioner is registered for, which is more useful than a general listing.

Then carry on with the rest of the checks. A register entry does not replace asking who prescribes, whether hyaluronidase is on site, or what a correction costs.

The Professional Standards Authority layer

The PSA oversees the statutory health regulators and separately runs the Accredited Registers programme for voluntary registers. Its accreditation is a check on the register, not on any individual member. If you want to know whether a register that a practitioner cites is a serious body or a badge someone created, the PSA's list of accredited registers is the place to check.

This is a genuinely useful and underused resource, because the sector contains a number of associations and academies whose names imply oversight they do not provide.

Where this leaves you

A practitioner on an accredited voluntary register has been checked by somebody. That is worth something, and in the current regulatory environment it is worth more than it would be in a licensed sector. It is not a guarantee, it is not a statutory permission, and it does not substitute for your own questions. Use it as one filter among several, and keep the register check with the statutory regulator as the first one.

No commercial links on this page

This article contains no commercial links of any kind. No affiliate links, no sponsored placements, and no links to any clinic, practitioner, brand, product or retailer. Nobody paid for it, nobody previewed it and nobody outside the editorial team saw it before publication.

This publication does not name, rank, rate or review any clinic or practitioner, because it has assessed none of them. Our funding is set out in full on the about page and in our editorial standards.

Nothing here is medical or legal advice. Speak to a qualified clinician about your own circumstances, and to a solicitor about a claim.

Sources

We cite regulators, legislation and clinical institutions, and we link them so you can check the current position yourself. We do not link to clinics or retailers. Regulation in this field changes, so the primary source is always better than our summary of it.

Frequently asked questions

Is the JCCP a regulator?

It is a voluntary register and standards body, not a statutory regulator. It sets standards and maintains registers of practitioners and training providers, and it holds Professional Standards Authority accreditation, but it cannot prevent a person from practising.

What does Save Face accreditation involve?

Save Face operates an accredited register with its own assessment process, including checks on qualifications, indemnity, premises and procedures, and publishes its criteria. It also collects reports from patients about poor experiences.

What is a Professional Standards Authority accredited register?

A voluntary register that the PSA has assessed against standards covering governance, entry requirements, complaints handling and public information. The accreditation applies to the register, not to any individual member.

If a practitioner is not on a voluntary register, is that a problem?

Not necessarily. Registration is voluntary and many capable practitioners have not applied. Absence is weaker evidence than presence, which is why the statutory register check and your own questions matter more.

Can I complain to a voluntary register about a member?

Yes. Accredited registers are required to have complaints processes and to explain them publicly. They can remove members, though removal does not prevent a person from continuing to practise.

When the rules change, we will tell you

One email when a law or a regulator's guidance changes in a way that alters what you should check, and when a new article is published. No treatment offers, no product recommendations and no clinic suggestions, because we do not make any.

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