Tuesday, May 15, 2012

New standards for cosmetic surgery in Europe

The Health Tourism Blog has moved to the IMTJ web site. You can now find the Health Tourism Blog here in future.I will continue to post the first few paragraphs of the blog posts here. You can find the full version of this blog post on IMTJ:

Here's an extract of the latest blog post: New standards for cosmetic surgery in Europe


The recent PIP implants controversy has raised more concerns about regulation, operation and standards within the cosmetic surgery industry. In the UK, the Guardian newspaper has recently highlighted private cosmetic clinics that employ surgeons to carry out breast enlargements, nose jobs and tummy tucks who do not hold qualifications as plastic surgeons within the NHS (Private cosmetic clinics employing 'unqualified' surgeons).  There are also concerns about the quality standards and practices of cosmetic surgery clinics both within the UK and across Europe. A new European Standard on Aesthetic Surgery Services represents a significant move to address these shortcomings.

Regulating the cosmetic surgeons

In general, cosmetic and plastic surgeons who carry out cosmetic surgery at one of the private hospitals owned by UK groups such as Nuffield, BMI and Spire hospitals will hold an NHS consultant position, usually in Plastic Surgery or ENT Surgery - NHS consultants who do some private cosmetic surgery work. In contrast, many of the surgeons working for the cosmetic surgery chains such as Transform, Harley Medical Group and the Hospital Group are not NHS consultants.
The British Association of Aesthetic and Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) has raised concerns about the influx of cosmetic surgeons into the UK from Europe. The BAAPS President told the Guardian, "We very often get applicants from Europe. Although they automatically get on the specialist register, the quality of training they have had is in no way equivalent to a trainee in the UK and they are often not deemed suitable for an NHS post".

According to Transform, "Qualifications obtained in other parts of Europe are at least the equal to those obtained in the UK" and said it was "completely untrue and highly misinformed" to suggest otherwise.
In June 2011, the European Commission published a Green Paper, “Modernising the Professional Qualifications Directive”. This Directive, adopted in 2005, sets the rules for mutual recognition of professional qualifications between Member States.  Consultation on this paper has now closed.

Read more about this in the full version of this blog post on IMTJ: New standards for cosmetic surgery in Europe

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I think we can find skilled surgeons allover the world....Even if people say that those from US are the best I think they are only more experienced because people there see plastic surgery as a normal thing.
But I found a very skilled and experienced one in Toronto working at http://www.edelsteincosmetic.com.
It's very important to have such a person performing the procedure because every men or woman that decides to take advantage of a cosmetic surgery want to feel safe and to have amazing results:)

Physicians CR said...

I think also in latinoamerica we can find skilled surgeons too, thats why a lot of people like to travel this countries to do medical tourism.