Are “Best of Wales” awards really accomplishments?

I’ll let you in on a secret- no!

Lots of “Best of” awards are a sham. They are often created by a company who have an interest in advertising your services. For example, a machine manufacturer may create an award. You may have the only clinic in a particular area that uses that machine. So guess what? You’ll win “best of Cheshire” or wherever the region is. The clinic gets publicity, the machine that the clinic uses gets publicity, more people book in to use the machine and the manufacturer who sells the device and consumables creates more revenue. Magazines often award “Best of” too, but again the competitors are limited to only the pool of subscribers who entered.

No one is doing anything wrong, it is just standard marketing practice. 

The only thing we paid for our award was the administrative time to create and email the digital certificate to me. There are options to pay a large sum of money to be advertised in their GHP magazine (I don’t subscribe) but I declined. So it may be that, in coming years, larger clinics will pay for their  “Best of” awards so small bespoke clinics like ours, that provide specialist medical aesthetics, are overlooked. 

So awards can look impressive but actually they aren’t really. You still need to do your own research. 

Who exactly is the injector? Are you seeing an aesthetic doctor? Are they GMC registered? Are they experienced in Aesthetics? What’s their clinical background? Your doctor should be upfront and honest outlining their clinical training and background. Do you feel pressured into buying products or services you don’t want? What’s the 3rd party reviews (eg: Google or trust pilot) like? 

As for my award of “Best in Wales” from GHP. I do not pay for a service from them, I didn’t pay to enter a competition and they have no financial gains if my clinic is advertised. They had a large quantity of Medical Aesthetic Clinics in Wales to choose from and they chose Dr K’s Clinic.

This is why I’m celebrating my Best of Wales award 2024!