Jacqui Cooney talks through regulation in aesthetics in Scotland as well as providing an overview on how practitioner’s register a clinic with Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS)
We all know about the unregulated aesthetic industry; we’ve seen the dreaded TV programmes. The programmes usually show a non-medical practitioner doing injectable treatments, to the viewer it invokes fear seeing the serious complications that can occur, this has an impact on all aestheticians qualified or not.
Very few of these programmes are based in Scotland, this maybe due to Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) who regulate the professional aesthetics industry in Scotland.
Who are HIS?
They are a regulatory body who are part of the NHS and are currently responsible for regulating independent hospitals, voluntary hospices, private psychiatric hospitals, and independent clinics. Their purpose is to improve the health and well being of the people of Scotland.
Due to the lack of regulation in the aesthetics industry HIS formed a working group and using various quality improvement legislation, and health and social care standards, new legislation was passed in April 2016 that ensured all independent clinics provided by healthcare professionals namely Doctors, Nurses and Dentists were registered and regulated by HIS.
As the regulation process is now more established, this professional group is widening to include Dental hygienists and paramedics. Because this is now a legal requirement any medical professional who does not comply will be subject to investigation and can be fined. This may result in losing their professional registration.
Registration with HIS
Following the foundation training on dermal fillers and neurotoxins, doctors, nurses, and dentists medical professional trained must register with HIS before they can provide an independent clinic service.
The process of HIS regulation for a new clinic is very robust and takes around 3 months to be completely registered. There is registration process in England governed by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and in Wales it is the Healthcare Inspectorate (HIW) however it is done via a licence application via the local authorities. However, it is a shorter process and not governed the same as HIS and open to less inspection processes.
In Scotland the healthcare provider setting up the independent clinic has to pre-register with HIS, they will then be given a password and username for their portal and asked to complete the process of registration, which includes filling out lengthy paperwork and writing around 21 policies for various aspects of their clinical practice to ensure the safety of the service user.
The clinical space must also comply with HIS government standards and have a specific medical sink and flooring.
As a medical professional this is a very lengthy but worthwhile process, it ensures that the service users can be confident that the treating practitioner is safe and that the clinical space is sterile and fully regulated.
Our biggest advice would be to get help with the HIS process as there is so much to consider even before registration.
Will you be a sole trader or a limited Company?
Will you employ staff?
Do you have a business name?
Have you registered with the ICO as a data protection officer? which is also a legal requirement.
HIS Inspection
Just prior to being registered with HIS once all the paperwork is submitted, HIS will allocate an inspector and they will arrange to visit your premises and if everything is in place the inspector will register your clinic and give you a set of guidelines to comply with. Once this is completed you will be ready to start your Independent clinical services and the public will be able to read on the HIS website that your clinic is regulated and safe.
The HIS registration is an ongoing process it does not stop at registration, you will have announced inspections usually yearly. In some cases, inspections can be unannounced should they receive any complaints about your service. You must ensure that your policies are followed and comply rigidly to your regulations. Should you require to amend your service the allocated inspector will be there to help.
Training in Scotland and HIS
Anyone who is a medically qualified professional and provides training must train out of a HIS registered clinic, so you won’t see training companies using hotel rooms etc or training a non-medical professional.
However, this does not stop non-medical practitioners going elsewhere in the UK to be trained and returning to Scotland to set up a non-regulated practice. This is an area under review by the Scottish government.
Reassuring the Scottish Public
The Scottish public can be assured that their feedback is listened to, and they have safe and regulated professionally qualified practitioners to provide them with their aesthetics treatments avoiding the serious complications seen in the TV programmes.
The HIS website can be used by the public to check if a clinic is regulated, and it should be noted that because some dental practices are regulated by the NHS there is no need for HIS registration in this instance.
As a Scottish training provider, we assist our delegates in the registration process with HIS and streamline this process saving them months of time. We allow each delegate access to practitioners who have gone through the process in real time which is an invaluable asset, and we are always happy to answer enquiries regarding the HIS registration process.
For More Information on our training course on-
Registering with Healthcare Improvement Scotland
A Practical Course providing you with the Knowledge, a Full Toolkit & Templates to Support You Registering with HIS and saving you months of work!!!
