Hansard

I thank you, Presiding Officer, for giving me permission to leave the chamber before the end of the debate. I put on record my entry in the register of members’ interests, as I hold a bank-nurse contract with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

I congratulate Stuart McMillan on bringing to the chamber this important members’ business debate. In recent years, aesthetic procedures have exploded in popularity, with many clinics popping up on our high streets offering services such as dermal fillers and Botox. While some of those treatments may seem minor, the use of fillers and neurotoxins such as Botox involves medical procedures that can cause serious harm if they are performed incorrectly.

I will share the words of one of my constituents, Suzanne, who owns Pristine Aesthetics. She is a registered nurse, and she runs a regulated clinic in my constituency. She says:

“As nurses we pay high fees to our regulators Health Improvement Scotland, and we work tirelessly to give safe effective care to patients. However we are constantly undermined by people doing short courses to inject people with cheap products purchased online. There is no deterrent, no safety net, or information on this for the public.

As nurses we have high standards and strict protocol on infection control and safe practice. It takes years to train and mould a nurse with the appropriate skill and ethics. The amount of dangerous places in this area is utterly frightening … this is poor unsafe practice.”

Healthcare professionals such as my constituent Suzanne must complete extensive education and clinical training before they can be licensed to perform injections and other procedures. Licensed aestheticians—I knew that I could not say that word properly—who may perform laser treatments, for example, typically complete more than 600 hours at an accredited training centre. However, there is currently no legislation in place to prevent an unqualified member of the public from purchasing materials online, completing a weekend seminar or online course and promoting themselves as qualified to inject clients, regardless of their actual level of knowledge, skill or experience. Worryingly, a 2021 survey of plastic surgeons revealed that 63 per cent of respondents had reported seeing patients with complications, damage and disfigurement after receiving treatments from unqualified injectors.

My constituent’s concerns are reflected in responses to a previous Government consultation on the subject, with almost 98 per cent of respondents agreeing that there should be further regulation of the industry to reduce the risk of physical and psychological harm and the associated cost to the NHS when something goes wrong. As one respondent put it,

“It’s easy to train to deliver these injections, it requires far more expertise to reverse or manage complications. Anyone who cannot manage their own complications should not be delivering these treatments.”

One cosmetic doctor who was interviewed in the press described what she called

“a concerning trend among teenagers to pursue ... ‘tweakments’ to achieve a look that is often completely unrealistic and unattainable”,

driven by “online beauty standards” and filtered images. That chimes with the findings of Girlguiding’s recent “Girls’ Attitudes Survey”, which revealed that over half of girls aged 11 to 21 said that they wished that they looked like they do with social media filters.

In Scotland, there is, effectively, what my constituent has described to me as a “two-tier system” currently in place. Health practitioner services, which are regulated by Healthcare Improvement Scotland, must take into account the physical and psychological wellbeing of the patient or client when considering a course of treatment, including their age. There is currently no ban on under-18s receiving treatments from non-medical prescribers.

The announcement from the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health that there will be a new public consultation on the topic is an extremely important step towards ensuring that the treatments, which are increasingly popular, are as safe as possible. New regulations will of course have to be introduced with care and consideration, not least to avoid undue difficulties for reputable small businesses and to ensure that unscrupulous providers are not driven underground. The consultation and the continued work of campaigners to raise awareness of areas of concern in the industry will be key to ensuring that regulation will be as comprehensive and effective as possible.

The Scottish Government has stated that it wants to ensure that the procedures

“are delivered from hygienic premises by appropriately trained practitioners, applying recognised standards and using legitimate products.”

Those are sensible goals, which the public should rightly expect to be pursued.