Every instrument in this library uses the same method. It is written down here so that a clinic can check whether a score means what it appears to mean, and so that two people scoring the same operation arrive at similar numbers.
Criterion referencing, not comparison
Every score here is criterion referenced. That means a criterion is scored against a written descriptor of what 0 and 3 look like, not against what other clinics do. The consequence is that your score does not move when somebody else improves, and that a top band is achievable by every clinic simultaneously.
The alternative, norm referencing, requires a distribution to compare against. No reliable public dataset of UK aesthetic clinic practice exists for any of the domains covered here. Constructing a benchmark from unstated samples, as several suppliers to this sector do, produces a number that looks precise and means nothing. We do not do it, and where an instrument would need such a benchmark to be meaningful, it says so and scores against criteria instead.
The four-point criterion scale
Each criterion is scored 0 to 3. The four points mean the same thing in every instrument:
| Score | Band | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Absent | Not present. The thing the criterion describes does not exist at the clinic in any form. |
| 1 | Emerging | Present but neither documented nor owned. It happens when somebody remembers. |
| 2 | Established | Documented or owned, but not both. It survives an ordinary week and not an absence. |
| 3 | Embedded | Documented, owned and reviewed. It would survive the departure of the person who built it. |
The distinction between 2 and 3 is deliberately about durability rather than effort. A practice that depends on one attentive person is scored 2 however well that person performs, because the criterion is asking what the clinic has rather than what an individual does.
How the total is banded
An instrument with ten criteria has a maximum of 30. Band thresholds are set as proportions of the available scale, at approximately 33, 58 and 83 per cent, and rounded to whole numbers. For a ten-criterion instrument that produces:
| Total | Band | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 10 | Absent | The domain is not established at this clinic. |
| 11 to 17 | Emerging | Partially established, unevenly applied. |
| 18 to 25 | Established | Established and applied, with identified gaps. |
| 26 to 30 | Embedded | Embedded and durable. |
The thresholds are not derived from data, and we do not pretend otherwise. They are a stated convention, applied consistently across every instrument, so that a band means the same thing in the pricing domain as in the compliance domain. Their value is comparability across instruments and across time, not precision.
Scoring by the weakest instance
Where a criterion applies to several things, score by the worst one a patient would realistically encounter, not by the average. A clinic with one excellent treatment page and eleven poor ones does not have good treatment pages; it has one good page. Averaging conceals exactly what an assessment exists to reveal.
Score the artefact, not the intention
Every instrument asks you to score what exists today. Work that is planned, budgeted, agreed or nearly finished scores 0. This is the single discipline that separates a useful assessment from a flattering one, and it is the rule most often broken by people scoring their own clinic.
Two scorers, then reconcile
Where practical, two people should score independently and then compare. Disagreement between a clinician and a non-clinician, or between a manager and the person doing the work, is more informative than either total. The descriptors are written to make reconciliation possible: a disagreement can be resolved by returning to the descriptor rather than by seniority.
What a score is for
Two things. First, the list of criteria that scored 0 or 1, which is the work. Second, the comparison with your own previous score, which is the only comparison this publication regards as meaningful. A total of 21 means very little on its own and a great deal when the last run was 13.
What no score here means
No score on this site is a rating of a clinic, a certification, an accreditation or an endorsement. Nothing is published, nothing is collected, and nothing is comparable to another clinic's result. If you see a clinic advertising a score derived from an instrument here, that is their claim and not ours, and we have not verified it.