In England, if a premises based check is available to you at all, it is this one. It is free, public, and more detailed than most people realise, provided you read past the coloured rating badge.
How the register is structured
Two concepts carry most of the meaning. A provider is the legal entity carrying on the regulated activity. A location is the place from which it is carried on. One provider may have several locations. This structure explains a great deal of confusion, because a clinic chain may be registered as one provider with a dozen locations, and only some of those locations may be registered for the activity you are interested in.
The other concept is the regulated activity itself. Each registration lists which regulated activities the provider may carry on at that location. This is the field to read. Registration is not a general permission to operate a clinic; it is permission to carry on named activities.
- Open
- The Care Quality Commission public register and reports
cqc.org.uk - Type in
- First the registered company name. Then the clinic trading name. Then the postcode of the treatment address, which finds entries whose names do not match the shopfront.
- A good result looks like
- A location entry at the address where you will be treated, showing the provider name, the regulated activities registered, a registration status of registered, and, if an inspection has taken place, a published report you can read in full.
- An ambiguous result looks like
- An entry for the same provider at a different address. An entry whose registered activities do not include anything resembling the service you are buying. A registration with conditions attached. No entry at all, which is common and usually lawful.
- What it does not prove
- That your treatment is covered by the registration, that the person treating you was assessed, that products are approved, or that any prescribing was lawful. Registration covers named activities carried on by a provider at a location.
- Note
- Laser and intense pulsed light for cosmetic purposes are outside CQC registration in England. For those, ask the local authority instead.
Searching properly
Search three ways, because each finds different things.
- By registered company name, which you should already have from the Companies House check. This is the most reliable route.
- By location name, meaning the trading name of the clinic. This works when the trading name is also the registered location name, which is often but not always.
- By postcode, which will show you every registered location nearby. This is the route that catches cases where the names do not match at all.
If all three return nothing, the most likely explanation is that the provider carries on no regulated activity and is not required to register. That is a normal, lawful outcome for a cosmetic injectables clinic. Note it in your file and move on to the other checks rather than treating it as a finding.
Reading the entry itself
Once you have an entry, work through it in this order.
Registered activities. Which are listed. If the treatment you want does not fall within any of them, the registration exists but does not cover your treatment, and the inspection reports will not be about it.
Registration status and date. Registered, or with conditions, or cancelled. Conditions on a registration are recorded and matter.
Address. Does it match the address at which you will actually be treated. Providers sometimes operate additional sites, and a nearby address is not the same address.
Inspection history. When was the location last inspected, and what type of inspection was it. A location can be registered and not yet inspected, in which case there will be no report and no rating, which is a fact rather than a concern.
Reading the report rather than the rating
Ratings are useful shorthand and they compress a lot. The report text is where the information is.
Read for three things. First, scope: what was actually looked at, and over what period. Second, findings: what the inspectors saw, in their own words, including the things they were satisfied about. Third, any requirement or enforcement action, and whether the provider responded.
Then look at the date. Services change. A strong report from several years ago and a weak one from last month are not equivalent inputs, and neither tells you about the individual who will treat you.
| Read this | Ask yourself | If it is wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Provider name | Does it match the company on my quotation | Ask which entity I am contracting with |
| Location address | Is this where I will actually be treated | Search the postcode for the real address |
| Regulated activities | Does my treatment fall within any of them | The registration does not cover my treatment |
| Registration status | Registered, conditional, or cancelled | Read the conditions in full |
| Report date | How old is this picture | Weight it accordingly |
| Report scope | What did the inspection actually look at | Do not generalise beyond it |
A framework written by this publication to organise the procedure. It is not a measurement, a guideline or a regulator's classification.
The things that sit outside the scheme
Three categories are worth naming because they account for most of the confusion in this field.
Purely cosmetic injectables. Frequently outside the regulated activities. A clinic offering only these may lawfully have no registration.
Laser and intense pulsed light for cosmetic purposes. Removed from the CQC registration requirement in England in 2010. Where regulated, it is generally through local authority special treatment licensing, and the coverage varies. In parts of London, special treatment licensing operates under local Acts; elsewhere the position differs. The only reliable answer is the one you get from the specific council for the address, which you can ask by email.
Non healthcare beauty services. Outside the scheme, and generally a matter for local authority licensing and general consumer and health and safety law.
Asking the council, which almost nobody does
This is the check with the highest information per minute in England, and it is unfamiliar because it is not online. Local authorities hold licensing registers, and they will tell you what they license and whether a given address holds a licence.
- Find the local authority for the treatment address using the council finder on GOV.UK.
- Email the environmental health or licensing team with the full address and the treatment name.
- Ask two questions: does this treatment require a licence from you at this address, and does this premises hold one.
- Keep the reply. It is a dated statement from the licensing authority itself.
The answer arrives by email and is authoritative for that address. If a council operates a special treatment licence and the premises does not hold one for a treatment that requires it, that is a matter for the council, not for you to resolve, and you can report it to them.
If you want to raise a concern with the CQC
The CQC takes information about registered providers and it also has an interest in people carrying on regulated activities without registration. What it does not do is resolve individual complaints or award compensation. If your concern is about an individual clinician, the professional regulator is the right body. If it is about money, consumer law is. The map is in who you complain to for each type of provider.
Where you do raise something, the file you have been building matters. Dated screenshots, the written answers, the quotation and the consent documents turn an impression into something that can be looked into.