We all have trusted favourites in life and choosing a clinic for a hair transplant should be no different.
You might have a favourite food brand, an online store you go back to, or tradespeople you trust to do a good job.
But if you’ve never needed to know how to choose a good hair transplant clinic before, what can you look out for to guide you?
1. Care Quality Commission
The Care Quality Commission is one of the most reliable ways to find a good hair transplant clinic.
By going to the CQC website, you can search for clinic names and registration numbers to make sure the hair transplant clinic you’re interested in is regulated.
Just make sure the trading name matches the registration number – some unregulated brokers will rent a room on regulated premises, but under a different name, and this doesn’t give you the same level of service.
2. Who’s doing the hair transplant?
Make sure you know – by name – who is going to perform your hair transplant procedure and check what qualifications they hold (i.e. any letters after their name).
An experienced hair transplant doctor is likely to be registered with the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery (ISHRS) so be wary of anyone who is not.
Check that the qualified surgeon will perform the entire procedure – including follicle extraction for FUE procedures – and that they are a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS) for strip or FUT transplants.
3. Research the clinic
Try to find out how long the hair transplant clinic has been in business – this can give some peace of mind that they will be around for long enough to provide you with any required aftercare.
You can look for testimonials on their website, look on independent sites for customer reviews like Trustpilot, check when the clinic’s website was set up, or look for a Companies House listing, or even check their social media profiles to see when their first messages were posted.
4. Indemnity insurance
Indemnity insurance is a common form of protection across many different trades and professions. A good hair transplant clinic should have indemnity insurance in its own name – not in the name of the surgeon.
Ask to see proof of the clinic’s policy and pay special attention to the name printed on it. Only proceed if it matches the clinic’s trading name.
5. First impressions
No matter how much research you do beforehand, your initial consultation is your chance to get a first-hand first impression, so see how you feel on the day.
Look for signs of professionalism – such as scanning your donor and graft areas with a digital microscope to identify characteristics that cannot be seen with the naked eye.
A good hair transplant clinic will carefully calculate how many follicles need to be transplanted, so if it seems like your ‘surgeon’ is relying on past experience or guesswork without doing the sums, this could be a red flag too.
At UK Hair Transplant Clinics, all of our qualified and highly trained team of hair transplant experts will help you find the solution that’s right for you. You can contact us via our live chat on our website, by email to info@ukhairtransplantclinics.co.uk or by telephone on 0800 043 0993.
