Study scope
What could a prospective patient find, understand and do before contacting the clinic?
That practical question shaped the audit. It was not an assessment of clinical quality, a ranking of clinics or a test of what happened after an enquiry.
Websites were identified through UK aesthetic-clinic listings collected from Google Maps using Apify, filtered for relevance and checked for a live URL. The final sample contained 50 surgical, 30 mixed and 120 non-surgical websites. Exact duplicate domains were removed.
The audit unit was the website or domain rather than the legal business. Related businesses, sister brands or the same practitioner could operate separate patient-facing domains; those domains remained separate because each presented a distinct public journey.
Each task had a three-minute limit. The timer continued through slow loading, cookie banners, pop-ups, complex menus and page transitions. That allowance was deliberately generous: essential information should usually be easier to find than the protocol permitted.
A website-visibility study
The audit recorded what was visible within defined conditions. It did not determine whether displayed risk information was clinically complete, verify practitioners’ qualifications independently, submit forms or bookings, measure response times, or estimate conversion and revenue.
Finding 2 · Selected-service information
For nearly half, neither risk nor suitability information was found.
No risk or side-effect wording and no suitability or contraindication information were visible for the selected service on 96/200 websites.
64.2% Non-surgical websites showed neither risk nor suitability information for the selected service.
77/120 showed neither risk nor suitability information for the selected service.
23.8% Surgical or mixed websites showed neither risk nor suitability information for the selected service.
19/80 showed neither risk nor suitability information for the selected service.
The study defined a complete core information set as the presence of four elements on the selected journey: a treatment or procedure explanation, downtime or recovery information, suitability or contraindication information, and any risk or side-effect wording. Only 77/200 websites contained all four.
Important interpretation boundary
“Risk or side effects mentioned” was a presence-only measure. A yes did not mean that disclosure was complete, balanced, specific to the procedure or sufficient for informed consent. Equally, “not found” describes website visibility within the audit conditions; it is not a judgement about the clinic’s clinical practice.
This is one reason the results should be interpreted as a patient-information finding, not as a clinical-quality score. The audit can show whether a prospective patient encountered decision-relevant information before making contact. It cannot determine what the clinic would explain during consultation.
Finding 3 · Journey continuity
Action was more common than complete core information.
A booking button, consultation request, callback, form or phone action was found on the selected page of 170/200 websites. Only 68 combined that action with all four core information elements.
Scroll the table horizontally to see all columns.
| Website profile | Websites | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Complete core information + selected-page action | 68/200 | 34.0% |
| Selected-page action without complete core information | 102/200 | 51.0% |
| Complete core information without selected-page action | 9/200 | 4.5% |
| Neither complete core information nor selected-page action | 21/200 | 10.5% |
The largest profile—102 websites—enabled an action without completing the audited information journey. This does not make the action inappropriate. It shows that transactional infrastructure and decision-support information did not always develop together.
Even booking-ready non-surgical journeys remained information-incomplete
The analysis isolated 56/120 non-surgical websites that combined four elements: a treatment page, a treatment price found either on the site or during booking, an online-booking pathway and a clear on-page next step.
- 42/56 (75.0%) lacked the complete core information set;
- 31/56 (55.4%) showed neither risk nor suitability information; and
- 17/56 (30.4%) did not make the exact practitioner identifiable for the selected service.
Among non-surgical websites with a service page, price, online booking and page-level action, 75% still lacked the complete audited information set.
This is one of the study’s clearest commercial and patient-experience findings: the machinery for the next step was often present, but the information supporting the decision was less complete.
Finding 4 · Pricing and consultation
Half showed a treatment price directly. Another 15% revealed it only during booking.
The combined figure is 129/200 (64.5%), but it should not be shortened to “64.5% displayed treatment prices on their websites”. On 30 websites the visitor had to begin a booking or selection journey before the price appeared. That distinction describes a different information experience: the visitor could ultimately find the price, but it was not available before entering a transactional flow.
Pricing also differed by clinic type. A treatment price was found for 105/120 non-surgical websites—75 directly and 30 only during booking. For surgical or mixed websites, a treatment price was visible directly on 24/80; none were found only through a booking flow. This difference should be interpreted alongside the consultation-first model for surgery.
Surgical websites generally used the appropriate consultation-first pathway
A consultation-request pathway was available on 67/80 surgical or mixed websites. A pathway was counted when visitors could request a consultation from the selected procedure page or elsewhere on the website. Immediate online booking of an operation was not treated as the expected standard.
Within the 61 surgical or mixed journeys that combined a dedicated procedure page, a consultation-request pathway and a selected-page action, 29/61 (47.5%) showed neither a consultation price nor an explanation of the first-consultation process.
The relevant surgical opportunity
Surgery begins with consultation. The useful next step is not “book the operation now”, but explaining what the consultation involves, what it may cost and how to request it.
Finding 5 · Practitioner transparency
Who provides the selected service was not always easy to verify.
Across all 200 websites, 171 named at least one practitioner. The visibility chain became weaker as the visitor’s question became more specific.
- 171/200 named at least one practitioner;
- 131/200 made an exact practitioner identifiable for the selected service; and
- 107/200 completed the full chain of a named practitioner, selected-service linkage and a visible professional registration or qualifying credential.
The gap was strongest on non-surgical websites
Among 120 non-surgical websites, 66 showed both a named practitioner and a qualifying credential, 29 named someone but did not show a qualifying credential, and 25 did not name a practitioner.
Scroll the table horizontally to see all columns.
| Non-surgical practitioner information | Websites | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Practitioner named + qualifying credential shown | 66/120 | 55.0% |
| Practitioner named, but no qualifying credential shown | 29/120 | 24.2% |
| No practitioner named | 25/120 | 20.8% |
Among the 95 non-surgical websites that named someone, 29/95 (30.5%) did not show a professional registration or qualifying credential under the audit rule.
“Not shown” does not mean “not qualified”
The finding means that a visitor could not verify the registration or qualifying credential on the website within the audit conditions. The study did not independently investigate practitioners’ qualifications and makes no claim that a credential was absent in reality.
Finding 6 · Contact and after-hours access
Being contactable was not the same as being able to answer the visitor now.
98% Offered a contact channel
196/200 provided at least one phone, email, form, WhatsApp or website-chat channel.
3% Passed the strict question-first task
6/200 allowed the visitor to begin a question without first providing identifying contact details.
A form, email or WhatsApp route can accept a message outside opening hours. It does not establish that the visitor receives an immediate answer, how quickly staff respond or whether the reply resolves the question. The study did not measure response speed or quality.
The strict question-first measure was deliberately narrow. A contact channel did not qualify merely because it existed. The visitor had to be able to begin a question without first giving a name, email address, phone number or other identifying contact detail. This is not only a privacy distinction; it also separates immediate question access from lead-capture-first contact.
Basic visit planning was also fragmented
An address or location was found on 182 websites. Among those, 93/182 (51.1%) did not show opening hours. Separately, four websites did not state even a city on the public website within the audit conditions.
Finding 7 · Supporting technical indicators
Most websites fell into the poor mobile loading bands.
The patient-journey audit remained the primary analysis. Single-run Google PageSpeed and Lighthouse results were added as supporting indicators of the conditions under which visitors tried to access that information.
84.0% Mobile LCP > 4sec
168/200 recorded Largest Contentful Paint above four seconds, the poor band. Six were good and 26 needed improvement.
70.9% Mobile FCP > 3sec
141/199 recorded First Contentful Paint above three seconds. Thirteen were good and 45 needed improvement.
6.0% Green mobile score
Only 12/200 achieved a green overall mobile performance score of 90–100.
For automated mobile accessibility, 91/200 websites (45.5%) scored in the green 90–100 band, 109/200 (54.5%) scored 50–89 and none scored below 50. These scores identify automated audit results; they are not complete accessibility assessments and do not replace manual testing with disabled users.
LCP and FCP are not exact patient waiting times. They are lab-test loading indicators that can vary between runs and environments. Their relevance here is directional: a three-minute information-finding task included loading time, and slow rendering consumed part of the visitor’s available attention before navigation even began.
Threshold references: Largest Contentful Paint, First Contentful Paint and Lighthouse accessibility scoring.
What clinics can improve
The strongest opportunity is continuity, not simply more content or more buttons.
A coherent website journey helps the visitor move from uncertainty towards an appropriate next step without forcing them to reconstruct the answer across menus, practitioner biographies, price lists and booking tools.
For non-surgical websites
- Build genuine concern-to-option routes instead of relying on treatment and brand lists.
- Use a consistent treatment-page structure covering explanation, recovery, suitability and risk wording.
- Show prices before the visitor has to enter a booking flow where possible.
- Connect every treatment to the practitioner who provides it and the credential shown.
For surgical and mixed websites
- Keep consultation request as the appropriate next step rather than pushing immediate treatment booking.
- Explain the first consultation, its likely price and what happens after the request.
- Keep practitioner, credential, recovery and risk-related information close to the procedure page.
- Use page-level actions that follow the information journey.
- Design from the concern, not only the treatment name. Visitors should not need to diagnose their own aesthetic problem or understand device and brand terminology before they can begin.
- Standardise the information architecture. Give every treatment or procedure page a predictable place for explanation, recovery, suitability, risk wording, price expectations and practitioner details.
- Put the right action after the relevant information. A booking or consultation button is most useful when the visitor has enough context to understand the next step.
- Separate price transparency from booking. If a treatment price exists, make it findable without forcing the visitor to begin a transaction.
- Explain consultation-first pathways. For surgery, clarify what the initial consultation involves, whether it has a fee and what happens after a request.
- Make practitioner information verifiable. Name the relevant person, link them to the service and show the qualifying credential used under the clinic’s own professional framework.
- Publish visit-planning information predictably. Address, city, opening hours, transport and parking information should not require a search across several pages.
- Distinguish immediate information from asynchronous contact. Forms, email, phone, callback and WhatsApp make a clinic contactable without necessarily providing an answer now. Common treatment, consultation, pricing and practical questions should therefore be easy to resolve before the visitor must submit details or wait for staff.
The audit allowed three minutes per task—already a substantial amount of attention for a real visitor. The practical target should be faster: essential information should be recognisable, understandable and actionable without an extended search.
Methods and transparency
A descriptive website audit with explicit limits.
Audits were completed during July 2026. Each website was assessed from the homepage using a selected concern or procedure scenario and predefined yes/no/not-applicable coding rules. Non-surgical scenarios generally began with a concern; surgical and mixed scenarios more often began with a known procedure or procedure-led concern.
No account was created, no personal details were entered, and no form, booking, WhatsApp message or staff-directed enquiry was submitted. A limited standardised chat question was used only when a widget explicitly identified itself as automated, AI or a chatbot, or its behaviour clearly appeared automated.
The analysis is descriptive. It reports counts, percentages and transparent combined measures for all 200 websites, the 80 surgical or mixed websites and the 120 non-surgical websites. It makes no statistical inference about all UK clinics and does not claim causation between website features and patient or commercial outcomes.
Main limitations
- The sample was drawn from filtered Google Maps listings and was geographically concentrated; it is not statistically representative of every aesthetic clinic in the UK.
- The audit reflects a July 2026 snapshot. Websites may subsequently change or become unavailable.
- One scenario and one selected service were assessed for each website. Other pages may differ.
- The three-minute rule measures practical findability. Information may have existed elsewhere but remained undiscovered.
- Website fields recorded presence and visibility, not clinical completeness, accuracy, quality or consent adequacy.
- Credentials were recorded from the website and were not independently verified.
- The technical results are single-run lab snapshots. Automated accessibility scoring is not a complete accessibility evaluation.
Data and reproducibility
Read the complete study and check the calculations.
Clinic and domain identifiers have been removed from the public dataset. The record-level data, coding rules and calculation workbook are available so the aggregate findings can be reviewed independently.
CSV Download the de-identified audit dataset ZIP Download the audit codebook XLSX Download calculations and QA checks Full research paper (English) Patient-Facing Information and Access on Aesthetic Clinic Websites →Funding and competing interests. The study was funded and conducted by iGlowly. iGlowly develops patient-information software for aesthetic-clinic websites, including concern-led navigation and question-first support. This creates a commercial interest in some of the capabilities examined.
No clinic paid to participate. No clinic is ranked or named, and the audit did not evaluate iGlowly or compare software products. Website coding was not independently duplicated; the de-identified data, codebook and calculation workbook are published to make the aggregate results reproducible.