Medical Wellness: An emerging trend in the aesthetics industry

Medical wellness is becoming a growing trend that many aesthetics clinics are beginning to embrace, allowing them to offer a holistic approach to the health of their patients. 

Instead of offering treatments in isolation to focus on one problem, medical wellness focuses on long-term health, looking at how the internal affects the external, providing a huge opportunity for medical aesthetic clinics to use this as part of their offerings. 

So what are the opportunities for clinics and why do they need to be embracing medical wellness?

We asked 505 women in the UK, who have a household income of over £50,000, about their attitudes towards medical wellness. The sample was recruited via third party access panels and was in field for 21 - 22 June 2022. 

Biggest barriers for patients health

In order to understand how clinics can enhance their medical aesthetics offering to patients/consumers, we first wanted to gain a better understanding of our respondents. We asked them the question ‘What is the biggest threat to your own health?’, to uncover the main factors driving people to seek medical wellness treatments. Interestingly, we see different reasons depending on the age group. 

Our data has shown that younger women see mental illness as a bigger threat to their own health, whereas older women would agree that obesity is a bigger threat to their health. 

However, what is interesting to note is how these different factors play into one another, as your weight can affect your mental health and how confident you feel about yourself, showing a strong correlation between the top 3 answers seen above. 

It’s important that clinics start to think about this holistic approach and how they could offer treatments that not only make patients feel good on the outside but on the inside as well, as they are all intricately linked. 

We can also see from our data that there is a need and a want to improve health, with 57% of women feeling that there is more they can do to improve their overall health. This has certainly been fast tracked by the pandemic, as we are all more conscious of our long-term health. 

Source: Rare Consulting. UK women 18+ earning £50,000 or more. Data Collected 21st - 23rd June 2022 (N=505). Q12 - Which of the following do you feel are the biggest threats to your own health? Base: 18-24 years old (N=80), 25-32 years old (N=69), 33-40 years old (N=89), 41-50 years old (N=86), 50+ (N=181).

Do patients want to improve their health?

Our research shows that 9 in 10 are interested in managing their own health, with 58% of women (who have a household income of over £50,000) feeling like they can influence their current health.

We’ve also started to see a trend of people wanting to look after their health from an earlier age, with younger generations drinking less than older generations. People are now aspiring to a certain lifestyle that focuses on health. Claire Reach often asks, “What kind of 70 year old do you want to be?”. If you want to be a 70 year old that is still active, rather than in a wheelchair or on heavy medication, then looking at your health from a holistic view will achieve this. 

Clinics and healthcare professionals/practitioners have the skills to start offering more holistic services by creating whole wellbeing treatment programmes. This could be anything from nutrition plans and specific vitamins to medicated weight management plans - educating the patients/consumers on their long-term health management.

The opportunities for Medical Aesthetics and Medical Wellness

Patients want to look and feel their best. 

In fact, women are over 3 times more likely to have medical aesthetics treatment and, of those who have had treatment, 74% agree that medical aesthetics makes them feel like their best self. But there is a desire for a holistic approach, with 70% of women stating they would be interested in a more holistic service for their health from their healthcare provider. 

If we look specifically at people’s ideal way of managing their weight, we can see a difference in perceived roles of intervention across the age groups. 

• 49% of 18-25 year old women report that a PT would be an ideal and realistic way for people to stay on top of their weight. 

• 38% of 25-32 year old women report that apps would be an ideal and realistic way to help people stay on top of their weight. 

• 28% of 41-50 year olds report that a medical aesthetic and wellness practitioner would be an ideal and realistic way to help people stay on top of their weight. 

• 59% of women aged 55+ report that a dietician would be an ideal and realistic way for people to stay on top of their weight 

With this in mind, it's important for clinicians to think about tailoring their offerings to their client database. Consider what the different age groups are looking for and create bespoke treatments and packages that best suit the client. 

Alongside this, healthcare professionals should be thinking about creating integrations of diet and exercise as part of their patient's bigger programme. Whether that means cross referrals with local dieticians or PT’s and incorporating that into their offering. 

Final Thoughts

In order for clinics and healthcare professionals to set themselves apart from beauty salons and competitors, it’s important for them to educate their patients about holistic treatments and how it can benefit them. 

For healthcare professionals to stay ahead, they need to be thinking about ways to make their patients feel like their best selves and that comes from a holistic approach. They need to think how they can enhance their already existing treatments/services with packages that are tailored to each of their patients.

Find out more about our data and insights services by emailing us at hello@rare.consulting or calling us on 020 7859 4627.