How to choose the best Botox Injector

18/01/2024

The market is flooded with clinics and salons offering quick, cheap Botox resulting in much confusion about who can treat, where they can treat and what they can inject into your face.

At Woodford Medical our ethos has always been and will continue to be your safety remaining paramount. We hope you find these guidelines helpful when selecting your practitioner.

• Ensure you are treated by a medically qualified professional practitioner. They should be actively registered which means they will undergo revalidation and will be insured. Revalidation implies that they only practice within areas that they are suitably trained and qualified. They follow a professional code of conduct towards patients where they should always do what is best for people and do them no harm.

• You can check through various professional body websites that the practitioner you are planning to see is properly registered. This gives you some ultimate redress as one could formally complain to their registration body. There is no requirement for non-medics to be registered with anyone therefore ultimately no accountability. Be careful with non-medics claiming they have gone on courses or training. Level 7 training is now being conducted by non-medics for non-medics and is a completely meaningless exercise.

• Ask what products the practitioner is using on you. If you want and expect to be injected with Botox then ask to see the bottle. It will clearly say Botox on the label. If you think you’re having Botox but in fact it isn’t and you have been told by the practitioner that it is Botox then that is a very large red flag. The only reason to use something else is because all current alternatives are cheaper.

• High pressure sales tactics, rushed consultations, discountingto draw you in are all warning signs. You should never see a practitioner doing this although some do. Selling Botox treatments based on areas is also not the best practice. Look instead for clinics who talk about a balanced natural looking result across the upper face, where all parts are treated in unison.

• Ensure you are given a treatment consent form that you need to read and sign prior to your procedure. Post treatment you should be handed an aftercare sheet to take home answering any queries you may have. If there isn’t any of these then this is another red flag.

• A good clinic/practitioner will ask to take pre-treatment photographs. This is to ensure both you and the practitioner can see how effective the treatment has been and make decisions about further treatments and areas of concern.

• This is a medical procedure and should only be performed in a suitable clinic environment. Scan the premises and treatment rooms as clutter, disorganisation and lack of cleanliness are an indication of unprofessionalism.

• Does registration with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) / Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQAI) help make a decision about an injector?

A practitioner/clinic registered with either of these governing bodies is certainly a “good sign”. The clinic and staff will have been screened, had checks to make sure they conform to a certain standard and have completed specific training. They hold inspections once a year and require such things as first response and anaphylaxis training, adult safeguarding and fire safety training, storage of drugs, refrigeration and proper record keeping of these. They ensure that all staff have achieved their appropriate revalidation for their profession. They check to make sure equipment is appropriately serviced and that operators are insured to use the devices and that the premises carry the correct public liability insurance. They do random spot checks on patient notes to ensure everything is recorded properly.

Failure to take time with this important decision-making process regarding your chosen practitioner, can result in treatment and outcomes that you are unhappy with such as drooping brows, eyelids and a completely frozen, unnatural appearance.

Here at Woodford Medical all our injectors are medically qualified and appropriately trained. We only use FDA approved products and we are regulated and inspected by the CQC and the RQAI. Regardless of which member of our injectors you see or which clinic you visit you can have absolute trust that you will receive the gold standard of care at Woodford Medical.