Complaints over botched cosmetic surgery have tripled in Scotland as people are left disfigured and at risk of dying.
Unregulated firms are performing so-called ‘nonsurgical’ treatments, such as lip and cheek ‘fillers’, without medical qualifications.
The popularity of the procedures means the sector is a lucrative industry but campaigners have warned that a lack of medical training and regulation is putting people – most of whom are women – at risk.
Last week the Scottish Government announced a consultation that it said would ‘gather views’ on how to address gaps in the regulation of non-surgical cosmetic procedures.
However, campaigners complain they have long raised the issue with the SNP administration and that failings in the way complications are recorded by the NHS means the true scale of the problem is unknown.
Charity Save Face, which is calling for stricter rules, says it received 303 complaints in Scotland last year – almost triple the 121 passed to it in 2019.
Ashton Collins, Director of Save Face, believes the cost to the NHS in Scotland as a result of complications caused by botched procedures will be ‘astronomical’.
The campaigner said she warned the Scottish Government last December that they were ‘not acting quickly enough’.
However, she remains dissatisfied with the SNP-led administration’s response to the issue and fears people remain at risk while the situation continues.
Ms Collins said: ‘Having these issues undocumented is more of an issue now because more laypersons are doing high risk surgeries.’
Earlier this year, mother-of-five Alice Webb, 33, is believed to have died after falling unwell from a non-surgical procedure known as a ‘Brazilian Butt Lift’.
However, the real figure for procedures that have gone wrong will never be known and experts have warned that the NHS is letting patients down by not monitoring the issue properly.
The NHS uses a coding system set by the World Health Organisation to identify treatment patients undergo.
However, there is no specific code to capture people being treated as a result of botched cosmetic surgeries, which will instead be classified under the health issues they lead to, such as infection.
An FOI request to all Scottish NHS groups by the Mail confirmed that none store data that would identify botched cosmetic procedures.
As a result, some independent organisations have started collating what information they can on the problem.
Susan MacMahon, a solicitor turned medical professional based in Glasgow, said she spends ‘four or five hours a day collecting data and making reports about dangerous beauticians’.
Ms MacMahon said she told the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health, Jenni Minto, that ‘they will have blood on their hands’ because ‘these are foreseeable harms that the government could have stopped’.
Often, patients come to Ms McMahon asking her to fix procedures that have gone wrong.
She added: ‘Nothing is tracked, most people have no idea what’s been injected into their face.’
Dr Nestor Demosthenous, one of Scotland’s most experienced aesthetic doctors, said: ‘I do feel that people in power don’t understand aesthetics’.
‘The daughter of someone important has to come to severe harm before something changes.’
Scottish Conservative MSP Roz McCall said: ‘SNP ministers have been full of warm words as they promised we would see tougher restrictions on these treatment from unqualified beauticians, but we have seen no urgency whatsoever to crackdown on them.
‘These dangerous procedures have left people maimed or disfigured and have caused real physical and emotional distress.
Niamh Freeburn was treated to stop her developing life-threatening sepsis after she received lip filler from a beautician who lied about being a nurse.
The 25-year-old woke up to find her lips had become stuck to her pillowcase and ‘as days went on, my lips looked like they had burns on them’.
She said: ‘I booked an appointment at the doctor’s and they told me that if I had left it any longer I could have developed sepsis, so they put me on antibiotics immediately.
‘I had to clean the wound out with salt every hour to stop it from becoming any more infected.’
The beautician blocked Ms Freeburn on Facebook, along with other women who commented that she had left them maimed.
Ms Freeburn admitted that she ‘regretted not doing deep enough research’ before having the
procedure performed.
But she felt it was ‘crazy’ that someone could complete a day course to become a practitioner.
‘Rather than wasting time with yet another consultation, the SNP must crack down on these unlicensed practices and ensure these highly dangerous substances can only be accessed by a qualified practitioner.’
Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health Jenni Minto said: ‘The current gaps in regulation means that anyone can perform most of these procedures without the need for any formal training or qualifications and this consultation aims to gather a wide range of views on how best to address this.
‘We want to make sure procedures are carried out by appropriately qualified and skilled practitioners so that clients have peace of mind. We are aware of the potential impact on businesses and we are working to make sure we get those details right.
‘Ultimately, our goal is to ensure that robust and proportionate regulation is introduced to ensure that people who choose to have these procedures, can do so with the confidence they will be safe.’
On the issue of NHS coding, a Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘NHS Scotland uses an international coding system owned by the World Health Organisation.
‘We recognise the lack of a specific code for complications from non-surgical aesthetic procedures is a problem and we are investigating the best way of raising this within the World Health Organisation structures.’
Last week, the Scottish Government launched a consultation on proposals that could see cosmetic treatments – such as anti-wrinkle or lip filler jabs – only be allowed take place in licensed clinics and be overseen by health professionals.
Any invasive procedure such as liposuction or buttock lifts would have to be carried out by a doctor or nurse.