Asking "is my injector qualified?" is the right instinct, but in England there is no single licence you can ask to see yet. So ask four things instead. Are they on a professional register you can check yourself? Who prescribes any prescription medicine, and will you meet that person? What exactly is going into your face? And what happens if something goes wrong? Somebody properly qualified answers all four easily.
This guide is written by Fresh Face Aesthetics, the nurse-led clinic Rachel Boothroyd runs in Wath upon Dearne. Rachel holds both a nursing registration and a prescribing qualification, so she sits on the prescribing side of every question below. Use them on any clinic, including hers.
Does anyone in England need a licence to inject your face?
Not at the moment.
Filler is not classed as a prescription medicine. Today in England nothing in law stops someone with a short course, or no course, from buying it and injecting it. The government set out plans in August 2025 for a licensing scheme for non-surgical cosmetic treatments, with the riskiest procedures limited to regulated healthcare professionals. In October 2026 it opened a consultation, running until January 2027, on limiting the highest-risk procedures, including permanent (non-resorbable) face fillers, to doctors, dentists and independent prescribing nurses, midwives and pharmacists. None of it applies until regulations pass through Parliament, so for now the checking falls to you.
Anti-wrinkle injections are different. The medicine in them is prescription only, which means a qualified prescriber has to assess you and prescribe it before it can be used. The person holding the syringe does not have to be that prescriber.
Two rules already apply to every clinic, whoever runs it:
- Since October 2021 it has been illegal in England to give filler or anti-wrinkle injections for cosmetic reasons to anyone under 18, even with a parent's permission.
- Since 1 June 2025, the Nursing and Midwifery Council has required nurse and midwife prescribers to see you face to face before prescribing anti-wrinkle injections or the emergency medicines used for filler problems. A remote consultation does not meet that rule.
Is my injector qualified? Start with a register you can check
Training certificates are easy to frame and hard to judge. A professional register is neither. Doctors, nurses, dentists and pharmacists all sit on a public register kept by their regulator, and anybody can search it for free.
- Nurses are listed by the Nursing and Midwifery Council. You can search by name or by PIN number, and it shows whether that person can currently practise.
- Doctors are on the General Medical Council register.
- Dentists are on the General Dental Council register.
- Pharmacists are on the General Pharmaceutical Council register.
Why it matters: a registered professional answers to a regulator for the way they treat you, and can lose the right to practise over it. Somebody with a beauty background and an aesthetics certificate may be careful and skilled, but nobody holds them to that standard if things go badly.
Ask the question plainly: "Which register are you on?" A regulated practitioner will tell you straight away, and will not mind you looking them up before you book.
Who writes the prescription?
This question matters for any prescription medicine, and anti-wrinkle injections are one.
For anti-wrinkle injections, ask who your prescriber is. There are only two good answers. Either the injector is a prescriber and assesses you themselves, or a named prescriber sees you in person before your treatment. If the answer is vague, or the prescriber is somebody you will never meet, treat that as your answer.
It is worth asking about dissolving too. The medicine that breaks down hyaluronic acid filler, hyaluronidase, is also prescription only. An injector who cannot prescribe has to rely on somebody else to get it. Ask how quickly they could do that on a Saturday afternoon.
At Fresh Face Aesthetics there is no handover at all. Rachel holds an MSc level 7 prescribing qualification, assesses you, writes the prescription and does the treatment herself. Injectors elsewhere in the area use her as their prescriber. For how that treatment runs at her clinic, with her current prices, see the anti-wrinkle injections page.
What exactly is going into your face?
You are entitled to know what you are being injected with, and you should know before the day.
- Ask what kind of filler it is. Filler made of hyaluronic acid breaks down with the right medicine. Other types do not, including permanent (non-resorbable) ones. If you cannot get a clear answer, do not go ahead.
- Ask to see the packaging. A practitioner who buys from proper suppliers has nothing to hide and will show you the box and batch details without fuss.
- Question a price far below everyone else's. Ask why, and what product they use.
- Keep a record. Note the product, the amount and the date. If you ever see a different practitioner, that information makes their job much safer.
There is more on the different filler treatments, and what each one is for, on the dermal filler page.
And if something goes wrong, then what?
Every needle treatment carries some risk, however good the practitioner. What matters is what the clinic does when a problem happens.
Ask three questions:
- Are you complications trained? In other words, have you been taught to recognise a problem and act on it, not just to inject.
- Do you keep emergency medicine at the clinic? For filler that means the dissolving medicine on hand, not ordered in after the fact.
- How do I reach you after I leave? A mobile number or a messaging line that the practitioner answers. A booking app with no human behind it is not a plan.
Ask about insurance too. A qualified practitioner carries cover for aesthetic treatments and will confirm it when asked.
Rachel is complications trained, fully insured and keeps the emergency dissolving medicine at her treatment room. Her number for calls and WhatsApp is 07909 981026.
Will they ever tell you no?
A clinic that says yes to everything is a clinic to be careful of. A proper consultation exists partly so that the answer can be no, or not yet, or less than you asked for.
Signs the consultation is real:
- You fill in a medical history before anything else happens, and somebody actually reads it.
- You are asked if you are pregnant or breastfeeding. Rachel does not treat during either, and a good clinic will say so without being asked.
- They look at your face moving as well as still, and explain what they would and would not do.
- You are given time to decide, and nobody minds if you go home to think about it.
- You hear about the risks as well as the results.
Clara C., who has reviewed Rachel on Faces three times, wrote in September 2025: "Rachel is lovely and very good at what she is trained to do,very happy with my results".
What should make you walk away before you start?
Any one of these is reason enough to leave, politely, and book somewhere else.
- Treatment offered at a party, in a hotel room or anywhere that is not a clean, private treatment room.
- Prescription injections with no prescriber in sight, or a prescriber you only ever "speak to" online.
- Pressure to book today, or a deal that ends tonight.
- No questions about your health, your medicines or pregnancy.
- A refusal, or a shrug, when you ask what product is being used.
- No clear way to contact them once you have gone home.
- Anyone happy to treat a person under 18.
None of these needs a medical degree to spot. They just need you to feel allowed to ask.
What if you have already been treated somewhere and now you are worried?
Do not wait and hope. If something looks wrong, feels increasingly painful, or the skin changes colour, contact the person who treated you straight away. If you cannot reach them, see a registered healthcare professional the same day.
For problems that are not urgent, such as filler that has moved, lumps, or a shape you never liked, a prescriber can assess it and talk through whether dissolving makes sense. Rachel sees people for exactly that, including for work done by somebody else, with no lecture about where it was done.
It helps to have the clinic's name, the date of the treatment and any aftercare sheet you were given.
Where does Rachel stand on all of this?
Over a decade of clinical nursing sits behind her: Registered General Nurse, Independent Nurse Prescriber (MSc, level 7) and NHS Specialist Nurse Practitioner, with advanced aesthetics training on top. She sees you in person, prescribes for you herself, and nobody else treats you. Her clients rate her 5.0 from 151 reviews on Faces.
Everything about her training sits on the About Rachel page. If you are an injector looking for a prescriber yourself, the prescribing page is the place to start.
Her treatment room sits at 47 Firth Road. People from Wath and the surrounding towns can find directions on the Wath upon Dearne page. Ask her anything before you commit: message 07909 981026, or send a note through the contact form, and Rachel will get back to you.