COSMETIC SURGERY
Regulating for risk reduction
The Royal College of Surgeons has recently announced a set of proposals, on which it is currently consulting, to improve standards of care for patients having cosmetic surgery. The Clinical Services Journal judges initial reactions to these proposals.
The Royal College of Surgeons’ (RCS) proposals aim to ensure that patients are able to make informed decisions about cosmetic treatment, including being able to check if their surgeon is listed on an approved register. It also aims to help surgeons to identify, reflect on and share best practice; and will allow providers of cosmetic surgery to assess the quality and safety of their services. It also aims to allow regulators to be able to assure themselves of the quality of care being offered. The Cosmetic Surgery Interspecialty Committee (CSIC), which was set up by the RCS in 2013, is proposing that patients considering paying for cosmetic surgery privately – where they choose to have an operation for aesthetic, rather
than medical reasons – should have access to clear, unbiased and credible information about their surgeon, care provider, procedure and likely outcomes. The proposals aim to achieve these
goals by setting standards for training and practice. At present, to undertake cosmetic surgery independently in the private sector, the person must be registered with, and licensed by, the General Medical Council (GMC). They must be on the GMC’s specialist register in one of a number of areas of specialty practice. The CSIC proposals aim to ensure that surgeons only perform cosmetic surgical procedures where they have the technical skills and experience to do so. Surgeons should be able to communicate effectively with their patients and they should understand and apply the ethical standards required to practice in this area. Under the new CSIC plans, surgeons
working in the private sector will have to prove they meet new standards of training in order to be certified and included on a register. This will be publicly available to employers and patients to allow for more informed decisions to be made. To obtain certification, surgeons will have to be on the GMC’s specialist register in the area of training that covers the operations they wish to perform. They will also need to demonstrate that they have: • Undertaken a minimum number of procedures within the relevant region of the body in a facility recognised
The proposals aim to ensure that surgeons only perform cosmetic surgical procedures where they have the technical skills and experience to do so.
26 THE CLINICAL SERVICES JOURNAL by the health regulator;
• The appropriate professional skills to undertake cosmetic surgery; and
• Provide evidence of the quality of their surgical outcomes.
Certification will only permit surgeons working in the private sector to undertake cosmetic surgery on the areas of the body that relates to the specialty they trained in.
Ensuring rigorous standards Commenting on the proposal, Mr Stephen Cannon, chair of the CSIC and vice president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said: “We are determined to ensure there are the same rigorous standards for patients undergoing cosmetic surgery in the UK as other types of surgery. This consultation provides the next step in establishing clear and high standards for training and practice so that all surgeons in the UK are certified to the same level, irrespective of where they trained. We want patients, surgeons and providers of cosmetic surgery to respond to this consultation and give us their views so we can develop these new standards.” The CSIC was set up by the RCS following Sir Bruce Keogh’s Review of the Regulations of Cosmetic Interventions,1
to take forward its
recommendations relating to the regulation of cosmetic surgery. The 2013 Keogh Review looked
at surgical and non-surgical cosmetic interventions and found that the existing regulatory framework has not kept pace with changes and it does not provide enough protection against many of the potential risks from cosmetic procedures. The report outlined the need for better regulation to bring cosmetic surgery into line with those in other countries and to
APRIL 2015
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