Scottish beauty therapists and healthcare practitioners carrying out non-surgical cosmetic treatments such as liquid Brazilian butt lifts and Botox injections must have sufficient insurance to protect customers if things go wrong.
The warning comes from not-for-profit campaign organisation APIL (the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers) as the Scottish Government consults on tightening regulations and introducing a licensing scheme for practitioners and businesses carrying out the procedures.
“Injuries can be serious and even life-changing when treatments go wrong. But astonishingly, there is no requirement for practitioners to be suitably insured so that injured victims can be compensated,” said APIL’s Scotland representative Gordon Dalyell.
“We’ve told the Scottish Government that public liability insurance as well as treatment risk insurance should be mandatory for practitioners. When procedures are performed by healthcare practitioners, their insurance should cover medical negligence.”
The Government plans to classify treatments based on risk by placing them into one of three groups, with group one treatments considered the lowest risk and group three the highest risk. APIL is concerned that some treatments, which can cause severe and permanent injuries if carried out incorrectly or without proper care, have been placed in the lower groups.
“Our members have seen injured beauty customers with life-changing injuries even when the treatment would be classed at the lowest risk under this licensing scheme,” Mr Dalyell explained.
“One person had a chemical peel and suffered severe and permanent scarring and pigmentation to the face. And a woman who went for laser hair removal suffered nasty burns and discolouration. Another client was left with permanent scars and severe psychological injuries as a result when intense pulsed light (IPL) treatment for facial pigmentation was carried out negligently.
“All of those treatments have been placed in group one and that creates a false sense of security that the risks are low when really the potential is there for severe and lasting damage,” said Mr Dalyell.
“We have also seen multiple cases where the use of prescribed Hyaluronidase injections to dissolve filler was overdone, causing cavities in people’s faces which needed invasive fat grafting treatments to put it right. These injections would be in group two.
“The classification of some procedures needs a serious rethink to reflect the severity of the harm arising from these treatments. This is also a rapidly growing and emerging sector, so legislation will need to be flexible and reviewed regularly to keep up,” said Mr Dalyell.