Mr. Onur Gilleard
Qualifications & Experience
Mr Onur Gilleard is a distinguished consultant plastic surgeon on the GMC specialist register. He previously held an NHS consultant post at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, specialising in skin cancer and microsurgical reconstruction. In 2021, Mr Gilleard transitioned from the NHS to dedicate himself fully to private practice, allowing him to focus exclusively on providing personalised, high-quality care to his patients. He is recognised as an expert in laser treatments, having conducted research and developed advanced treatment protocols using cutting-edge laser technology to optimise both clinical outcomes and cosmetic results.
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Every clinic’s website says the same things, which makes marketing useless as a basis for choosing between them. What separates providers is a small set of facts that are independently checkable in about ten minutes — on public registers rather than on the clinic’s own pages. This sets out the five that matter and exactly where to verify each, including for us.
1. Is the person examining you on the GMC Specialist Register?
Two registers are frequently conflated in marketing, and the difference is substantive.
The GMC register records that someone is a qualified doctor with a licence to practise. The Specialist Register records that they have completed specialist training in a named specialty — plastic surgery, dermatology — and is the entry requirement for a substantive NHS consultant post.
How to check: search the doctor’s name at gmc-uk.org. The entry states the registration number, licence status, and whether they are on the Specialist Register and in which specialty. It takes under a minute and costs nothing.
Worth knowing: “consultant” is not protected in the private sector in the way most people assume. Verify it against the register rather than against a website. Which specialty is the right one for a mole is a separate question — covered in GP, dermatologist or plastic surgeon.
For us: Mr Onur Gilleard, GMC 6120741, and Mr Reza Alamouti, both consultant plastic surgeons on the GMC Specialist Register.
2. Will the lesion be examined with dermoscopy?
This is the question that most changes the accuracy of what you are told, and the one patients least often think to ask.
Naked-eye examination judges the surface. A dermatoscope eliminates surface reflection so that structures roughly a millimetre down become visible — the pigment network, irregular streaks, blue-white veil, regression structures, vascular patterns. Those are the features that distinguish melanoma from the far more common lesions that imitate it. A meta-analysis found dermoscopy significantly improves diagnostic accuracy over naked-eye examination when performed by trained examiners (Vestergaard et al., British Journal of Dermatology, 2008).
How to check: ask directly whether the examination includes dermoscopy, and whether images are stored for comparison at future visits. Both are reasonable questions and a clinic doing it properly will answer easily.
3. What happens if it turns out not to be what everyone assumed?
The single most revealing question you can ask, because it exposes the provider’s pathway rather than its marketing.
A useful answer describes an alternative: excision with histology, or referral onwards. An answer that does not contemplate the possibility tells you the process has been designed around the expected outcome rather than the unexpected one.
The practical stakes are specific. Methods that destroy a lesion in place — laser, cautery, cryotherapy, radiofrequency — leave nothing for a pathologist. For a confirmed benign lesion that costs nothing; for a lesion whose diagnosis was the question, it forecloses the answer. And for a pigmented lesion that turns out to be melanoma, a shave biopsy that cuts through the base destroys the Breslow thickness measurement, which determines the width of the definitive excision and whether a sentinel lymph node biopsy is offered.
How to check: ask what technique would be used and whether the lesion can be sent for histology. Ask what the histology costs, so it is not a surprise.
4. Are the reviews verifiable and about the right thing?
Testimonials on a clinic’s own site are selected by the clinic. Independent sources are more useful, and they are worth reading for content rather than for score.
Where to look: Google reviews, Doctify, and the CQC report if the clinic is registered. All three are outside the provider’s control.
What to read for: reviews about the procedure you are having rather than the reception experience; reviews mentioning the specific clinician you will see; and how the clinic responds to a negative review, which is more informative than the absence of one. A provider with hundreds of five-star reviews and none about mole assessment has not told you what you needed to know.
5. Is the clinic CQC registered?
The Care Quality Commission regulates providers of regulated activities in England, including surgical procedures. Registration is about the organisation rather than the individual clinician: how the service is governed, how equipment is maintained, how incidents are handled, how staff are recruited and checked.
How to check: search the clinic name at cqc.org.uk. Registration status and any published inspection report are both available.
Worth understanding: CQC registration is a floor rather than a mark of excellence, and not every cosmetic service falls within scope. It tells you a provider is inside the regulatory system, not that it is the best option.
Things That Should Give You Pause
- A price for removal quoted before anyone has examined the lesion. The method should follow the diagnosis, not the booking.
- “Same-day results” used without qualification. A clinical opinion can be same-day. Histology takes three to seven days and no provider compresses that — anyone implying otherwise is describing something other than histology.
- Removal offered without any mention of what the tissue is for.
- Pressure to book a package on a first enquiry.
- Screening sold to everyone. Mole mapping is a risk-stratified service, not a population screening test. A provider recommending it regardless of your mole count, history and skin type is not stratifying anything.
- Claims of mortality reduction. Surveillance is associated with detection at lower Breslow thickness. No randomised trial shows it reduces melanoma mortality, and a clinic saying otherwise is ahead of the evidence.
The Phone Call, in Six Questions
- Who will examine me, and are they on the GMC Specialist Register?
- Will dermoscopy be used, and are the images stored for comparison?
- If the lesion needs removing, is that the same appointment or another one?
- Which technique, and can the tissue be sent for histology?
- What is the total cost — consultation, procedure, histology?
- What happens if the result comes back abnormal?
All six are answerable in a two-minute call. A provider that cannot answer them has told you something.
Our Answers to the Same Questions
- Who examines you
- A consultant plastic surgeon on the GMC Specialist Register — the same clinician who performs any procedure that follows.
- Dermoscopy
- Standard. For full surveillance, imaging is captured on a FotoFinder bodystudio ATBM system and stored against a body map so the same lesion is retrieved at each visit; the consultant reviews every image live in the room.
- If something needs removing
- It is excised at the same appointment. A suspicious pigmented lesion is removed whole with a 2 mm margin, never shaved, so Breslow thickness can be measured.
- Results
- Histology in three to seven days. Benign results by email; pre-malignant or malignant results are telephoned before any written report is sent. A confirmed melanoma is referred into a skin cancer multidisciplinary team, which is a national requirement.
- Cost
- Consultation £100 · mole mapping £300 · removal £350 · each additional lesion £200 · histology £180. Quotable in full before you attend.
- What we do not have
- Reflectance confocal microscopy. Where a patient would benefit from it — mapping lentigo maligna margins on the face, for instance — we say so and refer.
Appointments at 101 Harley Street: mole mapping, mole removal or contact the clinic. Mole checks are also available at the St Albans clinic; full mapping is Harley Street only.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I find the best mole clinic in London?
- Not from the marketing, since every provider says the same things. Check five verifiable facts instead: GMC Specialist Register status, whether dermoscopy is used, what happens if the lesion is not what was assumed, independent reviews about the relevant procedure, and CQC registration.
- How do I check a doctor on the GMC register?
- Search their name at gmc-uk.org. The entry shows the registration number, licence status and whether they appear on the Specialist Register and in which specialty. It is free and takes under a minute.
- Does “consultant” guarantee specialist training?
- Not in the private sector in the way people assume. The meaningful check is the GMC Specialist Register, which records completed specialist training in a named specialty.
- What does CQC registration actually mean?
- That the provider is regulated for the activities it carries out — governance, equipment, incident handling, staff checks. It concerns the organisation rather than the individual clinician, and it is a floor rather than a mark of excellence.
- Do BAAPS, BAPRAS or BAD memberships matter?
- They indicate engagement with the specialty and are worth noting, but they are supporting evidence. The primary check remains the Specialist Register.
- What is the single most revealing question to ask?
- “What happens if this turns out not to be what we think it is?” A good answer describes an alternative pathway — excision with histology, or referral. An answer that does not contemplate the possibility is itself the information.
- Should I be suspicious of “same-day results”?
- Only if it is unqualified. A clinical assessment and a decision can genuinely be same-day, and so can the removal. Laboratory histology takes three to seven days for everyone.
- Is it a bad sign if a clinic recommends mole mapping to everyone?
- Yes. Mole mapping is a risk-stratified service rather than a population screening test, and there is no evidence base for offering it to everyone. A provider that recommends it regardless of mole count, family history and skin type is not stratifying risk.
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