Doctors in Great Britain Demand Crackdown on Rouge Beauty Operators 

Doctors in Great Britain are standing behind a campaign focused on cracking down on unlicensed practitioners in the country’s aesthetic medicine industry, which is worth 3 billion Euros. 

A surge in the number of botched treatments by practitioners operating without a license and putting their clients’ lives at risk heightened the call for a crackdown, Sunday Express reports.  

Save Face, a national register of accredited practitioners, found 83% of complications from non-surgical procedures were due to treatments performed by unlicensed operators. The statistic firmly backs a plea by Vanessa Brown, head of sales and marketing for the UK and US-based health laser business Erchonia and founder of the health and beauty business VL Aesthetics.

Brown said the rouge practitioners are “putting lives at risk.” 

Doctors in the aesthetic medicine industry are joining forces with Brown, urging for regulation. 

“The lack of regulation here is shocking to my international colleagues,” said Dr. Dev Patel, founder of Cell-derma. 

In the UK, providers can attend a one-day course and “start injecting people’s faces,” Dr. Zoya Awan, an aesthetic and NHS doctor explained. 

Adding, “Here, more training is required to cut hair than to perform facial injections.” 

The lack of regulations was also exploited in a 2023 article on TheGuardian.com titled Regulating cosmetic surgery in UK is a nightmare, says top surgeon.  

Maniram Ragbir, the president of the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive an Aesthetic Surgeons (BAPRAS), explained how it’s difficult for patients to identify reputable practitioners because there is a growing number of organizations with credible-sounding names that surgical and non-surgical practitioners can advertise themselves as members of. 

“The word ‘college’ is not a protected word,” Ragbir said. “You could run a weekend course in liposuction, and then send [participants] away with a certificate – and that person can then advertise that they are a qualified, certified practitioner, which is unfortunately what is happening.” 

The department of health claims safety of the public is “paramount.”

“We would urge anyone considering a cosmetic procedure to consider the possible health impacts, and find a reputable, insured, and qualified practitioner,” the health department said in a statement. “We are exploring options around regulatory oversight of the non-surgical cosmetics sector and will provide and update in due course.”