Deadly risks of f ly-in Euro plastic surgeons

COSMETIC surgery patients are risking their lives being treated by ‘fly in, fly out’ European practitioners, British medics warn.

Surgeons from abroad regularly visit the UK to offer cut-price treatments before jetting home.

The availability of foreign doctors supplied by private medical groups has largely been responsible for the rise in affordable cosmetic surgery in Britain.

But the distance makes it hard for British patients to track doctors down should they suffer botched surgery or complications.

Many European doctors do not have adequate indemnity insurance and patients may have to sue them in their native countries, a British surgeons’ group warned.

And many European doctors are not as experienced as their British counterparts, the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) said.

The group is now calling for a change in the law to protect patients who they say are putting their lives at risk.

Michael Cadier, BAAPS president, said: ‘The issue is that you could have insurance in a country where you can’t make a claim unless you are in that country. So if your doctor is Greek, you’d need to go to Greece to sue him. We’ve had a lot of patients who’ve had botched surgery but they can’t do anything about it.’

He added that there was no system in place to routinely check that European doctors practising in the UK had any indemnity insurance.

There is also no requirement for them to have insurance equivalent to the level needed by their British counterparts, who are required to have £10million indemnity cover. So European doctors can in theory operate without insurance, BAAPS warns. Many European surgeons also have the amount of compensation they pay capped in their native countries and some can only be sued in the place they live, rather than through the British courts. ‘Fly-in, fly-out’ surgeons are usually employed by commercial chains who fly them to Britain for a short period. They cost less than British surgeons and although they are qualified, BAAPS warn that they are often less experienced. Incoming president Simon Withers explained: ‘EU surgeons can be just as good as British surgeons, but the trouble is that they are often signed off without being fully trained.’

BAAPS, which represents most NHS-trained UK surgeons, says that ‘fly-in, fly-out’ doctors represent about 15 per cent of those working in Britain. They are often employed as they do not charge as much as their British counterparts.

Italian plastic surgeon Marco Moraci was suspended last year following a botched facelift which left pensioner Pearl Richman, 68, scarred for life. It emerged that there were 60 previous complaints from British patients about his work when his case came before the GMC. But lawyers are unable to get redress because he has ‘gone to ground’ in Italy.