Anti-wrinkle treatments are a “crisis waiting to happen” and should be available on a prescription-only basis, a wide-reaching report on the cosmetic surgery industry has said.
It warned that dermal fillers, which are injected to plump up lips and skin, were “no more controlled than floor cleaners”.
The review, led by Sir Bruce Keogh, the NHS medical director, called for a host of recommendations to become enshrined into law in order to regulate the industry and protect patients undergoing cosmetic procedures from face lifts to laser hair removal.
"If you have a buttock implant, a calf implant or fillers, you have no more regulation of that than you have around a toothbrush or a ballpoint pen," Sir Bruce said.
The report was requested by Andrew Lansley, the former health secretary, following the scandal in which 50,000 British women were given faulty breast implants. The PIP implants, made in France, were passed by European regulators but the filling was then switched from medical grade silicone to industrial filler normally used in mattresses.
The committee recommended that all cosmetic procedures, from breast implants to laser hair removal should be carried out solely by medical practitioners who appear on a newly formed central register, to which access is only gained with appropriate training and specific qualifications. Those not on the register should not be able to get insurance, it said.
There was also a call for an ombudsman to be appointed to assist private patients who receive inadequate care.
The committee said that aggressive marketing techniques and incentives such as two-for-one and time-limited deals should be banned.
News Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
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