Consultant in call for crackdown on cosmetic ‘cowboys’
PRIVATE cosmetic surgery patients are being exposed to unnecessary risk because of poor regulation, according to a leading consultant.
An investigation has found evidence of patients left permanently scarred and unable to get compensation, with the NHS left to pick up the pieces.
One woman’s nose job was so bad it left her looking like she had been in a car crash.
The research looked at high street providers which use doctors from abroad who fly in and fly out to do numerous operations each year.
Certified surgeon Ken Stewart told a BBC Scotland’s Disclosure programme that only certified surgeons should be allowed to carry out cosmetic procedures, in order to protect patients from bad practices.
Mr Stewart is the Scottish Government’s adviser on plastic surgery. He told the programme: ‘The regulation is that people can still do inappropriate things in inappropriate environments, with inappropriately trained staff.’
He added that the current regulation was not ‘robust’ and he
‘Inappropriate environments’
called for the certification scheme to be mandatory.
Six years ago, a UK Government review recommended that only certified surgeons should be allowed to carry out cosmetic procedures, but instead a voluntary register was introduced.
The UK Government said all doctors practising in the UK must be registered with the General Medical Council (GMC) and have the right insurance, but the Royal College of Surgeons has backed a mandatory certification scheme that would, in effect, end fly-in fly-out surgery.
Critics of fly-in fly-out surgery claim that when complications occur, surgeons are sometimes no longer in the country to treat their patients, do not provide continuity of care and it is difficult to secure compensation.
Currently, in order to perform cosmetic surgery in the UK, doctors are only required to be registered with the GMC and do not need to pass specialist training.
The Scottish Government told Disclosure it would take additional steps to protect patients.
Public Health minister Joe Fitzpatrick said: ‘Some of this is devolved. I’d be up for having a conversation to make sure patients are as safe as possible.’