High-Risk Cosmetic Procedures Would Be Restricted to Doctors
Under plans put out for consultation this morning, fillers injected anywhere other than the face, including liquid Brazilian butt lifts, would be legally classed as surgery and could be performed only by doctors. Cosmetic surgery would be banned for under-18s. Breaches would carry unlimited fines or penalties of up to £4,000.
The target is a specific regulatory gap: procedures that are medical in everything but name have been performed by people with no clinical training, sometimes in hotel rooms, because the law did not define them as surgery. Deep chemical peels, so-called vampire facials, dermal micro-coring and some laser treatments would also be restricted to doctors, dentists and certain nurses, midwives and pharmacists. Karin Smyth, the health minister, said anyone undergoing a major procedure “deserve[s] to know you’re in safe hands — not risking your life with a rogue operator”, and that the aim is to “drive cosmetic cowboys out of the market”. Ashton Collins, who directs the register Save Face, was blunter about what the gap has cost: non-healthcare practitioners have “exploited a regulatory loophole” to perform high-risk procedures, leading to “serious and life-threatening complications, including the death of Alice Webb, and victims have been left without justice”. The British Beauty Council’s Victoria Brownlie said the line between a beauty treatment and a medical procedure had blurred in a booming and unregulated market. This is a consultation, not law, and nothing changes yet.