Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of voluntary schemes for the registration and certification of practitioners offering cosmetic procedures to patients on the safety of such treatments.

The General Medical Council has introduced new guidance which sets out the standards for doctors carrying out cosmetic procedures. The guidance applies to all doctors who carry out both surgical and non-surgical procedures. The guidance says doctors must advertise and market services responsibly; give patients time for reflection; seek a patient’s consent themselves, not delegate it; provide continuity of care and support patient safety by making full and accurate records of consultations and contributing to programmes to monitor quality and outcomes, including registers for devices such as breast implants.

The Government recommends that anyone considering accessing cosmetic interventions, chooses a registered health professional or someone who is registered with an accredited voluntary register (AVR). A number of AVRs for practitioners preforming cosmetic interventions are already established. Using a practitioner registered with an AVR provides assurance that the practitioner is appropriately qualified, registered and insured.

On 13 September 2017 I laid new regulations in parliament to impose a duty on the Care Qualtiy Commission to rate and assess the performance of providers of surgical procedures for cosmetic purposes where the procedure requires intravenous sedation, general anaesthesia or the insertion of an implant. These regulations are due to come into force on 31 October.