The Guardian view on regulating cosmetic procedures: rogue operators must be tackled, but aren’t the only problem | Cosmetic surgery

TThe enormous popularity of beauty treatments, including dermatological charges and Botox injections, is not only a problem for health regulators. The evolution of standards and aspirations on appearances, and the way in which they are mainly marketed with women and girls, are a cultural and economic phenomenon which requires broader consideration. Although attitudes to these procedures and aesthetics vary, many people – including some aesthetic surgeons – fear that young women explain an increasing part of a very lucrative and growing market.

The death last year of Alice Webb, 33, in the Gloucestershire, after a non -surgical Brazilian facelift, as well as multiple injury reports, and the death of at least 28 women who have traveled to Turkey for cosmetic treatments, increased pressure on ministers to tighten the law. The announcement by Wes Streting of new license requirements for British companies, and stricter regulation of higher risk treatments, is probably late. The Chartered Trading Standards Institute recently warned that unleashed people had given aesthetic injections in toilets and public hotels.

The modification of the law in order to exclude such “thugs operators” should make high and internet streets – where many clinics advertise – safer. Talking about risks, as did the Health Secretary, and the holding of a consultation on the proposed changes, may have the beneficial effect of raising awareness even before the changes are introduced. But advice will need resources if they should apply new rules by issuing licenses, checking the premises, etc. As in many other areas of economic activity, the law is unlikely to be sufficient. Mechanisms are necessary to ensure that companies comply.

It is already illegal to administer Botox or skin loads to children in England – although, worrying, it is always authorized in Wales and Scotland. The announcement of Mr. Streting that the rules concerning children will be tightened more are particularly welcome. Intense efforts should be made to place them outside the limits of industry as a whole. The reported concern of certain children with anti-aging products is not healthy and must be discouraged.

Mr. Streting did not refer to the cost at the NHS if the cosmetic procedures are mistaken, when the intention of tightening the law is announced. But Karin Smyth, one of his ministers, raised this. And Professor Sir Stephen Powis, who was the national medical director of the NHS in England until last month, raised the same point specifically in relation to the end elevators – the aesthetic procedure with the highest mortality rate of all.

Ministers should expect a decline even if many experts, including plastic surgeons, promote stricter rules. The pro-commune atmosphere of the Treasury means that the proposals for new regulations are unlikely to be smiling. The most restrictive approach proposed for England will also do nothing to prevent surgical tourism and could even increase it, if a stricter regulation of national industry causes higher prices. The gap in the guarantees which allow providers of foreign cosmetic surgeries to market directly to the public must be treated separately, which the government has started to recognize.

There is no unique or instant solution. But by repressing cowboy operators, the ministers will send a message that the injections apparently altering and other invasive treatments must be treated seriously. They are a different activity order by applying makeup or paint nails.

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