Health Secretary Yvette Cooper has pledged to crack down on cosmetic cowboys who deliver botched procedures that ruin lives, throwing her weight behind the Mirror's campaign to clean up the beauty industry.
The campaign demands better regulation of doctors and clinics performing procedures such as liposuction, surgical face lifts and surgical eye lifts. The Government pledged last year to introduce legislation to tackle cowboy practitioners, but MPs on the Women and Equalities Committee recently warned that the delay in action “is prolonging a significant risk to patient safety”.
Regulations to be brought in next year
Ms Cooper said people were being treated as cash cows rather than patients by unregulated practitioners, and said regulations would be brought in next year. She said: “The Mirror has done brilliant campaigning on this. We want to bring the regulations in next year to change it so you have proper regulation because these are cosmetic cowboys who are doing this.
“There's obviously a huge problem with some of the international cases and the overseas cases, but even here at home, you've got people who don't have the skills, who don't have the qualifications, where there aren't proper safeguards in place.
“That means instead of people being treated as patients and getting proper care and support if they're having cosmetic procedures done, instead they're just being treated as a way to make money as fast as possible.
“So you've got to have proper standards in place and proper regulation in place. So we want to bring that in next year.”
MPs demand faster action
Earlier this month, the Women and Equalities Committee said it is "deeply disappointed" by a lack of Government action to address cowboy practitioners. It said ministers are “not moving quickly enough” in introducing a licensing system for non-surgical cosmetic procedures and “should accelerate regulatory action”.
The cross-party group of MPs in February called for procedures including the liquid Brazilian butt lift (BBL) and liquid breast augmentations to be banned from the high street immediately. It also demanded ministers “require all practitioners performing invasive surgical cosmetic procedures to have specialist training and hold appropriate board certification in the procedures they undertake”.
But the committee said it is still yet to receive a response from the Government despite a reply being due in April.
Mirror campaign demands tougher rules
The Mirror is campaigning for tougher rules on cosmetic surgery to stop cowboy practitioners putting lives at risk. Among its demands, this newspaper wants cosmetic operations such as liposuction, surgical face lifts and surgical eye lifts to only be carried out by properly trained surgeons on the GMC specialist register. It also wants it to be made a legal requirement for beauty clinics that offer non-surgical interventions to have malpractice insurance.
