1. Who will actually treat you
Not the clinic name, not the founder in the photographs. The person who will hold the needle. Ask for their full registered name and, if they are a healthcare professional, their registration number.
Then check it. The General Medical Council, Nursing and Midwifery Council, General Dental Council and General Pharmaceutical Council registers are public and free, and each shows registration status, scope and any restrictions. Aesthetic practitioner, aesthetician, cosmetic specialist and clinical director are not protected titles and are not evidence of anything. The method is in how to check a practitioner is registered.
2. Who prescribes, and will they assess you
Only relevant where a prescription only medicine is involved, which means botulinum toxin and hyaluronidase. The medicine must be prescribed for you as a named patient by an appropriate prescriber, and professional guidance is that the prescriber assesses you face to face.
Ask who the prescriber is and whether you will meet them. A clinic where the prescriber is the person in front of you has the simplest answer. A clinic that becomes vague here has told you the most important thing you will learn all day. See who can prescribe injectable cosmetic medicines.
3. Registration of the premises, and the inspection report
Search the Healthcare Improvement Scotland register for the service. If it is registered, read the most recent inspection report, paying attention to anything about medicines management, infection control, consent and record keeping, and to whether findings were addressed.
If it is not registered, that is not automatically disqualifying, because registration is triggered by the professional status of the person providing the service. It is a question to ask, and the quality of the answer matters. The full explanation is in how cosmetic clinics are regulated in Scotland.
4. The complications policy, and who delivers it
Ask for it specifically. What happens if I have a complication. Who assesses me. How quickly. What number do I call at nine on a Sunday evening, and who answers it.
What you are testing is whether a policy exists as a system rather than as a sentence. A good answer names a person, a number and a timeframe. A poor answer is a reassurance that it never happens, which is not a policy and is not true.
5. Hyaluronidase on the premises
For anything involving hyaluronic acid filler, this is the single most consequential practical question. Is it here, and who can prescribe it for me at short notice.
The reason is set out in vascular occlusion. Briefly: the treatment for the one complication that can cause permanent damage is a prescription only medicine, and it works best when given within hours.
6. How the consultation is structured
Does it start with your concern or with a treatment menu. Is a proper medical and medication history taken. Are you examined in good light, at rest and in movement. Is anything explained about why your face looks the way it does. Are options offered, including doing nothing.
This is the criterion no register can assess for you, and it is the one that correlates most closely with whether you will be pleased in a year. Our detailed version is what a good aesthetic consultation looks like.
7. Whether anyone tells you what it will not do
Every treatment has a limit and every one of them is routinely sold slightly past it. A practitioner who states the limit unprompted is doing the part of the job that protects you.
If you leave a consultation without hearing a single sentence about a limitation, the appointment was not really an assessment.
8. The correction policy, in writing
What happens if the result is asymmetric, if it needs adjusting, if filler needs dissolving, or if you are simply unhappy. Is a review included. Is an adjustment at review charged. What does dissolving cost, and is it free if the problem is theirs.
Very few clinics publish this. Almost every patient assumes an answer that has never been agreed. Ask for it in writing before you consent to anything.
9. The annual cost, not the session price
Take the recommended frequency, multiply by the price, add maintenance for any course, and decide about that number. Then set your ceiling for the year before anything feels urgent.
Our price reasoning is in what cosmetic treatment costs in Glasgow and the structures to watch for are in packages, courses and memberships.
10. How it feels to say no
Say you would like to think about it and watch what happens. A professional will hand you the written plan and be entirely comfortable. Anything else, another offer, a shorter appointment today, a price that changes, visible disappointment, tells you what the appointment was for.
This is the last criterion and one of the most reliable, because it is the one a clinic cannot prepare for. The patterns are named in when a consultation becomes a sales appointment.
The signals worth almost nothing
A large social media following measures marketing, not practice. A luxurious interior measures rent. Before and after galleries measure best cases in favourable light, and the checks that make them readable are in how to read before and after photographs. Certificates from training providers record attendance, not competence. Awards in this sector are frequently paid to enter and paid to attend.
Reviews are worth a little, with caution. Look for detail about the consultation and about what happened when something needed adjusting, which is the only part of a review that is hard to manufacture. A wall of five star reviews with no detail is a marketing artefact.
Doing this properly takes about an hour
Twenty minutes of register checking and inspection report reading before you contact anybody. A consultation you attend without agreeing to treatment. A written plan taken away. A decision made somewhere that is not a treatment room.
It is slower than reading a list of the ten best clinics in Glasgow. It is also the only method that is actually about the clinics in front of you, assessed against criteria you can verify, rather than about a publication's ability to rank businesses it has never visited.