Cosmetic surgery gone wrong
February 09, 2012
Posted by:Marilene Antoni
As a specialist personal injury solicitor acting for clients who have suffered significant injuries from beauty and cosmetic surgery, I was interested to read that according to statistics from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, the number of surgical procedures in 2010 showed a steady rise of 5% from 2009 to a total of 38,274. A comprehensive report by the National Confidential Enquiry into patient outcome and death outlined some shocking statistics regarding companies who offer cosmetic surgery procedures:
- Nearly 70% refused to participate in the study and are, therefore, effectively not regulated
- One in five centres that offer breast augmentation perform these operations less than 10 times a year
- Of the nearly 9 out of 10 that advertise, over a quarter promote special offers
- Nearly a third (32%) of providers don’t offer a ‘Cooling off period’ after booking surgery
- Only 56% always do the initial patient consultation with a consultant surgeon
- Less than half (44%) of operating theatres were adequately equipped
- A third don’t have out-of hours consultant rota or a level 2 (High Dependency) unit
- One in five had no emergency re-admissions policy and relied on the NHS to deal with complications
Given the statistics it isn’t surprising that the number of claims in negligence against cosmetic surgery practitioners is on the rise. This is clearly unacceptable and measures must be put into practice to protect the public from suffering significant harm from such procedures.