Section 6.3

Questions marketing copy cannot answer

The consolidated list. Every question here has a short factual answer, and the pattern of responses tells you more than any individual one.

Northbank Media · Edition of 6 August 2026 · Chapter 06, Deciding

The useful questions are the ones with verifiable answers: registration number, product name and manufacturer, regulatory marking, where the product is bought, indemnity insurer, emergency protocol, out of hours contact, total course cost, and what would count as this not having worked.

None of them is confrontational and all can be answered in a sentence. What you are testing is not knowledge but whether the practice relates to this as a regulated medical procedure with documentation, or as a branded service with a supplier's leaflet behind it.

6.3.1About the practitioner

Which professional register are you on, and what is your registration number?
What training have you had specifically in this treatment and in this area of the face?
Who provided that training, and was it connected to the company selling the product?
How many times have you treated this specific area with this specific product?
Do you hold indemnity insurance covering this procedure, and with whom?
When did you last decline to treat someone, and why?

The last question is the most revealing on the list and the least expected. A practitioner who can answer it immediately runs a practice that says no. One who cannot think of an occasion has told you something about the screening you are about to receive.

6.3.2About the product

What is the product called and who manufactures it?
Does it carry a UKCA or CE mark, and may I see the packaging and instructions for use?
What is in it besides polynucleotides?
Does the manufacturer's intended use cover the area you are proposing to treat?
Where do you buy it from?
Will you record the batch number in my notes?

6.3.3About the evidence

When you say clinically proven, which study, in whom, measuring what?
Which parts of what you have told me are settled, and which are we both taking on trust?
How would we know, in six months, whether this did anything beyond hydrating my skin for a while?
What would count as this not having worked?

These four are the heart of it. They are not designed to catch anyone out and a thoughtful practitioner will engage with all of them. The third and fourth in particular separate a practitioner who has thought about this from one who has absorbed a supplier's account, and neither answer requires anyone to be a researcher.

What each question is actually testing

Question	What it tests
Registration number	Whether anyone is accountable for this
Product name and manufacturer	Whether they relate to it as a device or as a brand
UKCA or CE marking, and the packaging	Whether the product has a legitimate route to the country
Where they buy it	Whether a supply chain exists
Which study, in whom, measuring what	Whether evidence claims are theirs or the supplier's
What would count as this not having worked	Whether the outcome is assessable at all
Protocol for a vascular event	Whether there is a plan or an intention
Out of hours contact	Whether aftercare exists after the appointment
Total cost of the whole course	Whether the price you were quoted is the price
When they last declined to treat someone	Whether the practice says no

A framework written by this publication to organise a decision. It is not a measurement, it is not drawn from any study, and no figure in it should be quoted as a finding.

6.3.4About risks and what happens if

What are the risks that would be material for someone in my situation specifically?
What is your protocol for a vascular event, and can you describe it?
What do you do if swelling in this area does not settle?
Given there is no reversal agent, what are my options if I dislike the result?
Who do I contact if there is a problem out of hours?
What emergency medicines do you hold, and who is trained to use them?

6.3.5About money

What is the total cost of the entire proposed course, not per session?
What is the proposed maintenance and what will that cost annually?
If I stop after the first session, what happens to money already paid?
Is there any commission, target or incentive attached to what you recommend?

The last of those is asked rarely and is entirely fair. Some practices operate commission structures for staff. Knowing whether the person advising you has a financial interest in the recommendation is ordinary consumer information.

6.3.6Reading the answers

Nobody expects perfect answers to twenty six questions, and asking all of them in one appointment would be strange. Pick the ones that matter to you. What you are looking for is the shape of the responses rather than a score.

Specific and unhesitating, including on the difficult ones, and willing to say what is not known. This is what you want.
Warm but general, confident about outcomes, vague about documentation, and reframing evidence questions as reassurance. Common, not necessarily unsafe, and it tells you what quality of information you will get from this relationship.
Uncomfortable or dismissive, treating the questions as distrust. This is the one to act on, because you are about to consent to an irreversible injection and the consent needs to rest on something.

6.3.7How to actually ask them

The list above is long, and reciting a list at a practitioner is neither pleasant nor necessary. In practice three things make it work.

Ask a few, early, in the ordinary flow of conversation. Product name and manufacturer, registration number, and total course cost all belong in the first ten minutes and none of them sounds like a challenge. The tone that works is curious rather than forensic, because you are gathering information rather than conducting an examination.

Write the answers down while you are there. Not to be difficult, but because you will not remember them accurately by the evening, and because a practitioner watching you record the product name is a practitioner who is now certain the product name matters to you. This is also how you end up with the record that the safety chapter recommends keeping.

Save the harder ones for when you have heard the pitch. The evidence questions land better once a practitioner has finished describing what the treatment does, because at that point you are asking them to say more about something they have just said rather than interrupting them. The question about what would count as this not having worked is the one to close on.

If a practitioner asks why you want to know, the answer is that you are trying to make a decision you will not regret, and that you would rather ask now than wonder later. Nobody in a clinical setting can reasonably object to that, and the ones who do have answered a question of their own.

6.3.8The three answers worth having in writing

Most of this can stay in conversation. Three things are worth having on paper or in an email, because they are the three that become contentious afterwards if they were only ever spoken.

The total cost of the course and the maintenance, and what happens to money already paid if you stop.
The product name and the areas to be treated, so that what was agreed is not reconstructed from memory later.
The out of hours contact route, which is the one thing you will need at the moment you are least able to go looking for it.

Asking for those in an email confirmation is entirely ordinary and most practices will send one without being asked. A practice that will not put the total cost in writing has told you something about the total cost.

6.3.9Two questions to ask yourself

Neither is for the practitioner.

What would I do if this produced no visible change at all? If the answer is that you would have another course, work out now what your stopping condition is, because you will not construct one from inside the sequence.

Whose idea was this? Not a rhetorical question. If the impulse came from a platform, from a comment someone made, or from a person whose approval you are seeking, that is worth knowing before you spend money on it rather than afterwards.

Questions

Is it rude to ask all this?

No, and a practitioner working to a high standard will not experience it that way. Pick the questions that matter to you rather than reciting a list. The fear of seeming difficult is the main reason people do not ask, which is precisely why it is worth naming.

Which single question is most useful?

When did you last decline to treat someone, and why. It is unexpected, it has no prepared answer, and a practice that says no to people is one that assesses rather than converts.

What if they cannot answer something?

Saying they do not know, or that a question is unsettled, is a good answer and often the most informative one you will get. What matters is whether uncertainty is acknowledged or covered over with reassurance.

Should I ask about commission?

It is entirely fair. Some practices operate commission or target structures for staff, and whether the person advising you has a financial interest in the recommendation is ordinary consumer information rather than an accusation.

What should I ask myself?

What you would do if the treatment produced no visible change, and whose idea this was in the first place. Work out your stopping condition before you start, because you will not construct one from inside a course of treatment.

Sources

Links to regulators, professional bodies, legislation and research indexes. They are cited because they are public and checkable, not as endorsement of this publication. No source listed here has any commercial relationship with us.

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