In the latest episode of the Aesthetics Business Cast, hosts Vicky Eldridge and Eddie Hooker are joined by Charlotte Body, entrepreneur and founder of the Health Assembly, the organisation behind Menopause in Practice, Pause Live, Future Patient and MEN, a new event dedicated to men's health.
Charlotte's roots are firmly planted in aesthetics. Having launched and sold a number of successful businesses within the sector, including Cosmetic News and the Aesthetic Awards, and having run her own aesthetics clinic, she has spent the last few years bringing women's health and menopause into the aesthetics conversation. With that has come a fast-growing number of clinics looking to add menopause-related treatments to their offering.
Charlotte's route into aesthetics was, in her own words, not obvious. She started her career as a publisher for the car industry, but when the market crashed, her team looked at everything from funerals to weddings to cosmetics before landing on aesthetics as a growth area. The early guides she published were focused on helping consumers make informed choices about who to trust, a message that, as she pointed out, is still relevant 20 years on.
Her meeting with Vicky on a launch boat trip (over a cigarette, back when that was still allowed) sparked the launch of Cosmetic News. From there came the Aesthetic Awards, the Cosmetic News Expo (which still runs at the Business Design Centre under Easy Fairs as ACE) and eventually her own aesthetics clinic in Leigh-on-Sea, run in partnership with a dentist and later sold just before COVID.
Charlotte's time running her own clinic gave her a perspective many event organisers and publishers never get. She spoke passionately about how many aesthetic clinics still under-invest in retail and community.
Her observation is that clinics are so focused on running their social media accounts that they forget the basics: leaflet drops with a discount code to the local community, simple product recommendations at reception, and cross-referrals with local businesses. As she put it, this is the year of collaboration, and clinics that treat themselves as part of a wider community, rather than as isolated destinations, are the ones that thrive.
Both Vicky and Eddie added that the most successful clinics they see are increasingly run by two-person teams, often couples, where one focuses on clinical work and the other on the business. It is a reminder that clinical excellence and business acumen are two very different skill sets.
The most personal part of the conversation was Charlotte's account of her own perimenopause. Despite working in the medical sector, she was in denial about her symptoms until her aesthetic practitioner spotted them, told her to get her bloods done privately, and pointed out that her skin was ageing rapidly.
That moment shaped Menopause in Practice. Charlotte's view is that aesthetic practitioners are uniquely placed to be menopause "first responders". They see their patients regularly, they notice changes in skin, hair and mood, and they have the trust and the time that GPs often do not. They are not there to diagnose or treat menopause themselves, but they are in a position to spot the signs and signpost patients to the right medical support.
At the first Menopause in Practice event, doctors and nurses in the room realised, sometimes for the first time, that the symptoms they had been experiencing were their own perimenopause. That ripple effect is exactly what Charlotte set out to create.
Charlotte was equally passionate about MEN, her new event dedicated to men's health, which launches on International Men's Day. Her argument is straightforward: men's health conversations, particularly around andropause, are around ten years behind women's. Testosterone decline, grief for a younger self, low mood and physical changes are all real, and the male population has had far fewer safe spaces in which to discuss them.
Eddie brought his own perspective, having gone through prostate cancer treatment, and reflected on how much the conversation around men's health has shifted in just the last couple of years as more public figures speak openly about their experiences.
MEN is designed to serve two audiences on the same day: healthcare professionals during the day, and consumers in the evening in a podcast-style format with special guests. The gap in the market, Charlotte noted wryly, was clear from the fact that the URLs she wanted were still available when she went to buy them.
Charlotte's Future Patient event, which runs alongside Pause Live, focuses on functional medicine and longevity, an area increasingly being folded into aesthetic practice. From regenerative treatments like polynucleotides and exosomes to broader wellness and longevity protocols, this is a fast-moving space, and one that comes with its own insurance and clinical considerations.
Eddie made a point that resonates throughout the episode: Hamilton Fraser's ability to insure new treatments depends entirely on being present in the conversation. Attending events, listening to practitioners and understanding what is coming next is what allows the business to build cover for treatments before they become mainstream, rather than after the fact.
The conversation then turned to the practical realities for clinics wanting to add menopause, longevity or intimate health treatments to their portfolio.
Charlotte was clear that cover cannot be assumed. Adding a new treatment does not automatically mean it is covered under an existing aesthetics policy, and she urged practitioners to always check with their broker before offering something new.
Eddie added that safeguarding is one of the most under-appreciated areas of risk in the sector. Hamilton Fraser's policy covers allegations of sexual misconduct, which many practitioners do not think about until they need it. In a one-to-one clinical setting, particularly for intimate treatments, offering a chaperone should be standard practice.
Charlotte drew a useful contrast: patients are used to intimate waxing appointments without a chaperone because that is the culture in beauty. But as clinics move into intimate health treatments and start asking intimate health questions, that culture needs to shift. A chaperone protects both the patient and the practitioner.
One of the most practical points raised was around image storage. Most commercial insurance policies require before and after photos for cover to be valid, but Charlotte and Eddie both flagged a real risk in how those images are being stored.
Practitioners walking around clinics with iPads full of patient photos, images uploaded to cloud services without proper protections, or notes left on desks are all sources of potential exposure. As clinics move into intimate health treatments, where those images may be particularly sensitive, this is not an area to leave to chance.
Asked where she sees it all going, Charlotte returned to her core theme: passion. Delivering Pause Live is a not-for-profit passion project designed to help other women. She would like to do something similar in the men's health space, and to take her events beyond London so that practitioners and consumers around the country can access them without the travel cost.
Her message throughout is simple. Aesthetic practitioners are extraordinarily well placed to support their patients through menopause, andropause and wider health changes, provided they do so within their scope of practice, signpost appropriately, and make sure they have the insurance, safeguarding and clinical protocols in place to do it safely.
Listen to the full episode here: Beyond aesthetics: The insurance and regulatory risk of expanding into menopause care with Charlotte Body
For more content on menopause, longevity and running an aesthetic clinic, visit the Hamilton Fraser Content Hub.
