Prescription weight loss treatments are becoming an increasingly common offering in aesthetic clinics. A prime driver over the past 12 months is that these services can be started and continued remotely with direct-to-your-door delivery. This ‘subscription’ service has been a way for clinics to have some income trickling in (in the same way as clinical skincare) with recurrent lockdowns hampering the traditional business model.
However, advertising for such services needs to ensure it stays on the right side of the regulations and that prescription-only medicines (POMs) are not advertised directly to the public. A recent enforcement notice from the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) highlights the importance of this and how often the rules are being ignored.1 This may feel like a case of déjà vu for practitioners and is certainly familiar ground for the ASA in their previous dealings…
