The wait is over: GMC’s first set of cosmetic regulations are out!

Ayesha Atif April 19, 2016

Aesthetic Business

Following the attention and concern raised by Sir Keogh’s report regarding the regulations of cosmetic treatments industry, government and health regulatory authorities have started taking actions for regulating the industry.

In an effort to regulate the cosmetic industry, General Medical Council (GMC); a regulatory body of medical practitioners and doctors, and Royal College of Surgeons has recently published new set of rules for those doctors who offer cosmetic treatments. These new rules are representation of the shifting regulation tides that are taking place in the aesthetic industry. These rules focus mainly on the safety of the patients, ethical marketing of aesthetic treatments and are applicable on the doctors who provide non-surgical aesthetic interventions like Botox and dermal fillers as well as surgical aesthetic procedures such as breast augmentation surgery, facelift surgery etc.

The Health Minister, Ben Gummer, said regarding these rule,

“This new guidance for doctors is an important step forward in improving standards and ending the lottery of poor practice in parts of the cosmetic industry.”

These new set of rules have been welcomed by the professional, qualified and trained aesthetic professionals. These new rules set out by GMC follow the guidelines that have been already provided in the HEE documents. It mentions the level of education which should be achieved by aesthetic practitioners before 2018 including;

The requirements of qualification for delivering the cosmetic procedures
Report about the qualification requirements implementation for the cosmetic procedures

The aim of new cosmetic interventions guidance

The primary aim of the new GMC guidance is to ensure that doctors;

Should have appropriate training as well as experience to safely do aesthetic practice
Are able to work with individual patients to ensure that they develop realistic expectations from the cosmetic intervention they are undertaking.
Should be following the present guidelines or protocols for provision of effective and safe cosmetic treatments.
Should take into account the cosmetic requirements of their patients.
Not to allow any kind of financial or commercial interests to effect the standards set for good patient care and safety while providing cosmetic interventions.

Know the new rules

Take consent of the patient by yourself

It is necessary that the consent of the patient after complete understanding of the cosmetic intervention to be taken by the doctor who would be performing it or supervising the intervention performed by another doctor.

Give sufficient time to the patients for reflection

Ensure that the patients are provided with enough time and given proper information before deciding about whether to have the cosmetic intervention or not. Now the question is how this enough time can be calculated.

According to GMC the given time will vary according to the complexity, level of invasiveness, permanence, risks and complications involved in intervention. For the cosmetic injectable treatments, these factors will be on the lower side of the scale.

Consider the psychological needs of your patients

The cosmetic doctors must ensure and get satisfaction from the patient that the decision to take the cosmetic intervention is voluntary.

Working within your own competency

Cosmetic doctors must ensure that they perform the treatment safely while performing the treatment for the first time by themselves or while supervising someone performing the treatment for example this can be ensured by taking proper and specialized training or opting for opportunities of supervised aesthetic practice.

Inform patient about the risks involved

Ensure that the patients have all the required information which they want to know including the information in writing which supports care continuity as well as information related to the medicines or any devices to be used during the procedure. This should be done before starting the treatment and not after completion of treatment. What else is included into risk? The intervention which fails to attain the desired objectives.

Take care while treating young people and children

Ensure that the younger patients wish to have the treatment themselves, irrespective of their parents consent.

Do marketing with honesty and responsibility

Do not attract patient by making unjustifiable claims about the treatments which are not possible to accomplish, making the risks trivial or by making use of marketing tactics that push people into making ill-considered decisions.

What is next to it?

These rules will be applicable from 1^st of June 2016. Until the rules from the other regulatory bodies such as Nursing and midwifery Council comes into light, it is recommended that nurses, dentists and other professionals providing aesthetic interventions should follow these guidelines of GMC.