The name, and the decision behind it
The domain says finder. A finder implies a directory of named clinics, and we cannot responsibly build one. To list a clinic we would have to verify its registration, its premises position, its prescribing arrangements and its indemnity insurance, and keep all four current. We have no way of doing that for a single provider, let alone thousands. A wrong entry about a medical provider is not a broken link. It is a person choosing where to have a needle put into their face on the basis of something we asserted and could not check.
So this publication names no clinic. Not one. No practitioner, no group, no brand, no chain, no training provider and no product manufacturer is recommended, ranked or listed anywhere on this site, and none ever will be.
What we publish instead is the instrument. Which public registers exist, what each one proves, what it does not prove, exactly what to type into it, and what to do with the result. That is a stronger product than a list, because a list goes out of date the day it is published and a procedure does not.
How this is funded, in full
A publication whose product is teaching people to verify cannot also sell placement to the people being verified. Everything about the funding model follows from that sentence.
What we will not sell, at any price: clinic listings, directory entries, featured placement, lead generation, enquiry forwarding, sponsored articles, sponsored guidance, badges, awards, kitemarks, verification marks, review management, reputation services, or any arrangement under which a provider of aesthetic treatment appears more favourably anywhere on this site. The full list, with the reasoning for each item, is published at what we refuse to sell.
What we do sell. Two things, both kept away from every patient facing page.
The first is a paid professional register of professional indemnity brokers, medico legal solicitors and training providers. Entries are sold only on disclosed, verifiable identifiers, are listed alphabetically, are labelled as paid, are never ranked, and appear on their own page which carries no verification guidance. The criteria and the rates are published at criteria and rate card.
The second is a labelled sponsor line in the newsletter, sold at a published rate, with a published list of what the money cannot buy. It cannot buy influence over a single word of verification guidance, cannot buy a mention in an article, and cannot buy the subscriber list.
We run no advertising network and no keyword advertising.
The professional register is currently empty, and we say so
No entry has completed verification, so the register holds no entries. We will not pre fill it to make it look established. An empty register that only accepts verified entries is worth more than a full one that does not.
Who publishes this
Skin Clinic Finder is independently published. The editorial standards, including the rules on what may never appear here, are published in full at editorial standards.
What this site is not
It is not medical advice and it cannot tell you whether a treatment is right for you. It is not legal advice, and where injury or a substantial sum is involved you should take some. It is not a regulator, holds no statutory function, and has no power over any provider. It is not a complaints service, though it will tell you exactly which body is.
It is also not against cosmetic treatment. Nothing on this site suggests that wanting treatment is foolish or vain, and any publication that sneers at its readers has already failed them. The position here is simply that a person spending money on a procedure is entitled to check what they are buying, and that in this field the checking is unusually difficult and unusually worth doing.
Corrections
Regulation in this field differs across the four nations and changes. If something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it and say that we have. Every procedure on this site names the register or the statute it relies on, so that you can check the current position yourself rather than take our word for it.