Hansard

I am pleased to lead this members’ business debate on the need for non-surgical medical aesthetics to be regulated. I have been highlighting the topic for several years, as have colleagues on all sides of the chamber. I thank those colleagues who supported the motion to allow the issue to be debated.

The issues arising from the lack of regulation, combined with greater access to non-surgical medical cosmetic procedures, was first raised with me by a constituent, Jill Best, in 2018. I am therefore delighted to welcome Jill and some of her colleagues to the public gallery, and I thank them for coming along.

This debate is about making the industry as safe as possible for patients. It can be argued that, just as with any other purchase, people should, in this area, consider the quality of a product and the person who is selling or administering it. That is especially true when they are considering treatments that involve needles and substances being injected into skin. Understandably, people expect lay injectors to be properly trained and to provide safe, regulated treatments, but that is not always the case. Without regulation, if a procedure goes wrong, there is little chance of holding that lay injector accountable, and the national health service is left to foot the bill for any corrective treatments.

In contrast, if a patient goes to a healthcare professional for the same treatment, that professional will be regulated by Healthcare Improvement Scotland. That means that they are a regulated prescriber and will have obtained medicines from a reputable source. Furthermore, they must have in place safeguards to ensure that the environment in which they are administering the treatments meets health and safety requirements, and that they have policies in place for what happens if a treatment does not go to plan.

In addition, a healthcare professional can rely on their medical training to ensure that a patient is looking for the right type of treatment, following an initial consultation with that patient. Healthcare professionals are also trained to identify whether someone is displaying signs of capacity or mental health issues before making a final decision to carry out any procedure on a patient. If they turn someone away on those grounds, however, the worry and concern is that the person may simply go elsewhere and seek out a lay injector to have the treatment done.

That is only a brief synopsis of the huge range of issues that have been brought to my attention—and, no doubt, to the attention of colleagues on all sides of the chamber—but it is clear to me that regulation of the whole sector is non-negotiable. I am pleased, therefore, that the Scottish Government is looking at bringing in additional regulation. While I know that that has taken longer than anyone would have liked, it is important that we get it right.

As I have learned in recent years, just when the list of all the different types of procedures that are available seems to have been exhausted, another one comes on the market. That shows how adaptable the industry is. We need, therefore, to ensure that regulation is robust while also being flexible enough to cover any new treatments that become available—who knows what the picture will be like in five or 10 years’ time? I appreciate that ministers will want to consult the United Kingdom Government to try to align any policy changes as far as possible across the UK, in order to try to reduce the likelihood of people in Scotland travelling to other parts of the UK for such treatments.

That being said, Scotland has the opportunity to lead the way on the issue. The upcoming public consultation will enable members of the public, as well as healthcare professionals and lay injectors, to have a say on potential regulation. It is important that lay injectors are part of the process and have the chance to feed into any changes that are going to affect them. The industry is not going away any time soon; societal demand shows that it is very much here to stay, so we should make it as safe as possible for everyone. In my view, that is the important thing.

I am aware that lay injectors are undercutting the prices that are being offered by healthcare professionals. If regulation drives up the cost of procedures, that will also act as a barrier and make people think twice about getting a treatment done. However, it is not just about price—the marketing of these products is also a factor in how people access them, and I have had dialogue with the Advertising Standards Authority on that very point. I have seen social media posts in which lay injectors offer treatments for free, or at a discounted price, as they need models. I fear that that leads people to think that these treatments are as simple as getting make-up done. However, make-up can be removed, whereas if a medical aesthetic treatment goes wrong or if the patient does not like it, the after-effects cannot so easily be reversed.

Furthermore, I have seen some lay injectors run online raffles with procedures as a prize. That is very much at odds with the approach that is taken by healthcare professionals, who consult patients before agreeing to offer any procedure. The examples that I have just touched on breach advertising rules. The ASA has told me that, in the past two years alone, it has proactively taken steps to have more than 50,000 online posts for prescription-only medicines taken down.

Evidently, a whole range of policy decisions needs to be considered in order to deliver effective regulation of the medical aesthetics industry. I will continue to highlight those and engage with the Scottish Government and with colleagues on all sides the chamber, and—crucially—also with healthcare professionals, to ensure that the matter is very much progressed.

I look forward to the new consultation, and I encourage anyone who has an interest in this particular issue to get involved in that consultation when it opens. I would like to think that the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health will, this evening, be able to give some information, or an update, on the consultation. That would certainly help the professionals so that they know what is coming and when, in order that they can encourage others to take part, too.

Fundamentally, we want to ensure that the industry is as safe as possible for everyone across the country, including my constituents in Greenock and Inverclyde. We in Scotland can lead the way, and we have a great opportunity to do so on this particular issue.