The Care Quality Commission is threatening to shut down beauty clinics that are performing unsafe nose jobs, facelifts and breast enlargements after it discovered that almost one in five of these clinics put their customers at risk. A report was published on Tuesday by the health regulator in which it warned that untrained staff treats a large number of people who undergo cosmetic surgery. These people are left in danger during liposuction when they are sedated. The alarm was sounded by the regulator after it conducted inspections of clinics that were solely offering cosmetic surgery. It unearthed a number of ‘areas of inadequate practice’, which could cause serious harm to the patients.
Some of the primary areas of concerns across the cosmetic surgery clinics in England are:
• A lack of attention towards fundamental safety procedures
• The inability of staff to obtain proper consent before beginning treatment
• Poor or improper monitoring of patients whose health is likely to deteriorate
• Proper ‘cooling off’ period not provided to patients between their consultation with the surgeon and the procedure
• Not being able to manage the allergic reaction called anaphylaxis, which could be fatal
A total of 102 services are licensed by the CQC for carrying out cosmetic surgery and the regulator inspected 65 of them. Of the 65, they have published reports on 58 clinics and action has been taken against one fifth of them i.e. 12 in total. Bearwood Cosmetic Clinic had its registration cancelled by the regulator after a number of unsafe practices were discovered. The clinic is based in Solihull in the West Midlands. The CQC’s application for shutting down the clinic was approved by a magistrate. Initially, the court’s decision was contested by the clinic’s owners, but they chose to drop their appeal later on. The CQC stated that they would publish a full report soon, which would disclose the poor standards that had been discovered by inspectors at Bearwood.
The operating license of the Look Younger Clinic was also suspended in August by the CQC. Based in Chichester in west Sussex, the clinic had a host of problems. As per the report that was published by the health regulator, the staff of the clinic was putting patients and themselves in danger by not taking appropriate action for controlling the risk of infection. Moreover, not all of the staff was properly trained for keeping patients safe and providing proper care and they were also using out-of-date medicines.
These findings have dealt a major blow to the image of the booming cosmetic surgery and wider beauty industry. It has come under a lot of fire for pressuring people into undergoing procedures, ignoring the use of dubious marketing techniques like offering two procedures for the price of one. The chief inspector of hospital for the CQC, Prof Ted Baker warned all cosmetic surgery clinics that they would crack down hard on them if they come across unsafe and inadequate care. He said that some operators did have good practices, but there were too many examples of improper and substandard care.
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