Non-Surgical Beauty Treatments are Scarring Victims for Life Due to a Lack of Regulation

A government review into treatments like Botox and filler has found many practitioners are completely unqualified.

It's like the Wild West', she said. We have people who are selling training courses which are not worth the paper they are written on. We have practitioners who are destroying the industry's reputation by practising completely unqualified and we have victims who are scarred for life.'

Experts have been raising concerns about the lack of regulation in non-surgical beauty treatments for years. Most recently, a BBC Three documentary found that aesthetic procedures are being taught online and over unsafe one-day courses. Aesthetic training courses are almost entirely unregulated in the UK, despite the fact beauty procedures like filler and Botox can cause serious complications if not carried out properly.

Earlier this year, UK plastic surgeons reported a 70% rise in consultation requests in 2020 alone, with most demand centering on Botox and fillers. Despite swarms of people mostly women, we might add jumping to have facial tweakments done, the government have completely failed to regulate the exploding industry, the review states.

MPs chairing the inquiry have thus suggested 17 recommendations the government must implement to better protect people choosing to undergo non-surgical procedures. Such recommendations include introducing mandatory training for all practitioners, setting up a national licensing system to ensure premises meet certain hygiene requirements, and mandatory psychological screenings before procedures take place (in order to understand a person's motivation and spot those at risk of serious self-esteem issues).

They have also suggested extending age-requirements on invasive treatments like thread lifts, which are already in place for Botox or fillers for under-18s. Of course, while the industry is so unregulated that people can easily claim to be practitioners despite a lack of real qualification, it's hard to know just how often age-restrictions are enforced.

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