BAOMS calls for regulation for high street beauty salons injecting dermal fillers
30 January 2019 (Last updated: 30 Jan 2019 16:02)
For immediate release 30 January 2019
British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons calls for regulation for high street beauty salons injecting dermal fillers
The British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (BAOMS) has called for regulation in the UK of therapists who inject dermal fillers in line with European Union (EU) rules.
Caroline Mills, BAOMS Lead on Aesthetic/Cosmetic Surgery and Consultant Maxillofacial Surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital, said: “In the EU you have to have a medical licence to inject fillers, but no one in the UK government is saying we need similar regulation.”
While BAOMS agrees with the recent call from MPs that dermal fillers should be considered medicines and the introduction of guidelines, it also goes further and wants to see regulation of the industry.
BAOMS has concerns about the scope of training, health and hygiene issues such as infection control in the high street beauty salon industry. Unfortunately, serious medical complications can result from these procedures such as vascular occlusion, possibly leading to blindness, or severe allergic reactions both of which require emergency medical treatment. It’s recognising and managing these problems that is so important and where patient safety maybe compromised.
There is an increasing cost impact to the NHS to treat high street procedures that go wrong, but the scale of emergency treatment and corrective surgery is as yet unknown because there is no NHS coding for non-surgical treatment problems where the client has to go to A&E.
Caroline Mills points to a recent patient who had taken up the offer of inexpensive dermal fillers that were being promoted at her gym: “The treatment went badly wrong and the patient has now had over 30 facial operations, and has been forced to leave her job.”
She said that despite the introduction of the voluntary register for non-surgical treatment practitioners last year patients should be aware that the regulations allow non-medical staff to give non-surgical injectables. “This is disappointing. We need regulation in the UK to protect patients properly.”
Ends
For further information and interviews contact: Siân Evans on 020 8674 8921 / 07752 414433 / or BAOMS
Notes to editors
The British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (BAOMS) promotes the advancement of education, research and the development of oral and maxillofacial Surgery in Great Britain, and encourages and assists postgraduate education, study and research.
Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners (JCCP)
Cosmetic Practitioner’s Standards Authority
The voluntary register of practitioners qualified to undertake aesthetic treatments, together with a register of education and training providers will come into force from March 2018. The JCCP and CPSA will work together to enforce the regulations. The JCCP will oversee registers of practitioners and training organisations, police standards, while the CPSA will set standards of competence for practitioners and training organisations.
British Association of Dermatologists
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