If you run an aesthetic clinic in the UK, there is a good chance your website is currently breaking advertising law. Not in a technical, hair splitting way. In the way that ends with a formal complaint and pages being taken down.
The rule is straightforward. Botulinum toxin products are prescription only medicines, and prescription only medicines cannot be advertised to the public.
Where this comes from
Two places, and they carry different consequences.
CAP Code rule 12.12 prohibits advertising prescription only medicines to the public. That is the advertising regulator, and the outcome of a breach is usually a ruling and a requirement to change the material.
Part 14 of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 contains the same prohibition in statute. The MHRA treats breaches as a criminal matter rather than a marketing infringement. That is the part clinic owners tend not to know.
What it means in practice
The brand name should not appear anywhere a member of the public might see it. Not in a page title, not in a heading, not in the alt text of an image, not in a social media caption, not in a paid search ad, not on a printed flyer.
You can describe the treatment. Anti-wrinkle injections is the usual formulation and it is accepted.
Watch the wording around it though. The ASA has treated phrasing like wrinkle relaxing as an implied reference to the product, which puts it back inside the prohibition. If a phrase only makes sense because the reader knows which medicine you mean, it is doing the job of an advertisement.
The narrow exception
There is one, and it is narrower than people want it to be.
Clinic and pharmacy websites offering consultations for the treatment of lines and wrinkles may provide information about a prescription only medicine, but only in the context of it being one possible option following a consultation.
That is an information provision inside a consultation context. It is not a licence to put the brand name in your page titles because it has search volume.
But my competitor ranks for it
They do. They are also one complaint away from taking those pages down, and complaints in this sector usually come from other clinics.
The commercial argument for compliance is better than it looks. You lose one branded search term. You keep the terms describing the concern and the treatment, and those carry real volume from people who do not know the brand name in the first place. Building your search presence on a term you are not allowed to use is building on ground you do not own.
What to check today
Search your own site for the brand name. Check page titles, meta descriptions, image file names and alt text, and any PDF price lists. Then check your Google Business Profile, your Instagram bio and any ads currently running.
If you would like someone else to do that pass, get in touch. It is the first thing we do for any clinic before we design anything.
This is a summary written to help you spot a problem, not legal advice. If you find one, take proper advice on your specific wording.