‘Another thoroughly wasted opportunity to ensure patient safety’.

The government’s response to Sir Bruce Keogh’s recent recommendations for overhauling the cosmetic treatment industry is welcome as far as it goes, but overall is “”too little, too late” according to the patient safety charity, Action against Medical Accidents (AvMA).

Keogh was appointed National Medical Director in NHS England from 2013, where he is responsible for promoting a focus on quality, clinical leadership and innovation, and released a report on the state of the cosmetic surgery industry in April last year.

The review recommended:

Legislation to classify fillers as prescription only;

Formal qualifications for anyone who injects fillers or Botox;

Register of everyone who performs surgical or non-surgical cosmetic interventions;

Ban on special financial offers for surgery;

Formal certificate of competence for cosmetic surgeons;

A breast implant register to monitor patients;

Patients’ procedures must be approved by a surgeon not a salesperson;

Compulsory insurance in case things go wrong;

A pooled fund to help patients when companies go bust – similar to the travel industry.

But it seems that dermal fillers will not be classified as medicines, despite Keogh’s recommendation, and there will not be a statutory register of patients who have received them, nor of those who administer cosmetic procedures.

Plastic surgeons complain that the government has also been unwilling to use compulsion in its register of breast implants, following the PIP scandal after women were given implants filled with industrial silicone.

The government has set up a voluntary register, but the surgeons say that has not worked in the past and will not now.

And the review itself says: ‘Previous attempts at self-regulation in the industry have failed, largely because voluntary codes have meant that only the best in this disparate sector commit themselves to better practice, whilst the unscrupulous and unsafe carry on as before.’

“…This review, not the first one conducted into the sector, represents yet another thoroughly wasted opportunity to ensure patient safety,” Rajiv Grover, president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, told the Guardian recently.

AvMA has had to advise and support people who have been harmed by sub-standard cosmetic treatment, and submitted evidence to Sir Bruce’s review.

While the government has accepted the vast majority of Sir Bruce’s report “in principle”, it has not committed to full regulation of the industry or ensuring appropriate avenues for redress for patients who have been harmed.

Peter Walsh, the chief executive of AvMA, said: “We welcome this response as far as it goes.

“It signals that Government is at least taking these problems with the cosmetic treatment industry seriously at last.

“However, we have seen too many people harmed by rogues in this industry already.

“We are disappointed not to see all providers of cosmetic treatment having to register and be regulated by the Care Quality Commission, or a proper compensation scheme created for victims of the industry.

“The Government had promised its response by last summer and [the Chief Medical Officer for England from 1998-2010] Sir Liam Donaldson’s report in 2005 was ignored. We need to see action not words now.

“Overall, this is a case of too little, too late.”

This as, according to figures from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (Baaps), there has been a dramatic increase in the popularity of plastic surgery in the UK; “the most impressive rise in demand” since the start of the recession in 2008.

Donaldson‘s report had outlined a series of moves to ensure better training for doctors, better information for patients and a tougher regulatory structure for private cosmetic surgery.  In 2005.

To read Keogh’s ‘Review of the Regulation of Cosmetic Interventions’, click here.