With great regularity, the press goes into overdrive about botched cosmetic treatments overseas. Even though it is quite appropriate that the substandard work of bad plastic surgeons at mediocre clinics abroad should be highlighted, you should keep hold of a sense of balance, and appreciate that the same things can, and do, go wrong in UK establishments.

The problem is the fact that the press which are reporting the dangers of cheap plastic surgery abroad often benefit from advertising revenue from the domestic beauty clinics. God Bless the BBC, therefore, for publishing an investigation by the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death, explaining exactly how far from perfect UK establishments very often are. (The BBC is, as we know, one of the few leading corporations in the media that are largely independent from private business and advertising, and that's why they've been in a position to publish.)

A particular major weak point was found, that in lots of ways is the cause of many of the other failings. Out of all the cosmetic surgeons practicing in Britain, merely a third of them are members from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic surgeons. It's obvious that legislation and more robust regulation is required.

As an example, experts recommend that a beauty clinic does an established minimum number of a particular given procedure annually. The reason for this is that without practice, it is less likely that surgeon can keep their necessary skills up, which is really just good sense. An airplane pilot can't retain his license to fly without a certain number of flights each year, for similar reasons.

In the instance of cosmetic surgery, not less than twenty surgical procedures each year is advocated; however, the truth is that a huge quantity of UK establishments carry out far less than this set amount, but still feel confident to attempt surgical treatments they rarely carry out. Only one-tenth of the 361 clinics assessed managed to carry out this quantity of ear pinning operations, and only 20% were able to reach this number of boob reductions. 1 / 4 from the sample of clinics performed a sufficient amount of facelift procedures.

The answers reveal that a large number of plastic surgery treatments from this country are being conducted by cosmetic surgeons of inadequate experience. In point of fact, what's being highlighted is more of a have a go mentality, as opposed to the expertise and professionalism you would probably assume.

This is not where the criticisms finished. Merely one third of the clinics, who haven't been named, bothered to undertake some kind of psychological assessment of the patients.

And though it is highly recommended that a two-stage consent process be in place, to allow for patients to properly look at their particular surgery options, just one third of clinics do adopt this recommendation.

Over fifty percent of all of the centers were insufficiently equipped, and twenty percent had no emergency readmission procedure in place. Monitoring of patients pre and post surgery was also found to be lacking.