Following on from an article in June’s Dynamic highlighting the dangers inherent in the unregulated industry, Dynamic looks at ITV’s exposé, ‘Britain’s Backstreet Surgery Scandal’

Undercover filming by ITV News gave an insight into dangerous cosmetic practices being carried out in some of Britain’s high-street salons by ‘wild west operators’. It’s part of a year-long investigation into unregulated cosmetic surgery for a new ITV documentary - ‘Britain’s Backstreet Surgery Scandal’ - in which the Health Secretary Wes Streeting has committed to taking action against those carrying out these procedures.

As part of that investigation, ITV discovered that every week, behind the doors of an unassuming beauty salon in south London, dangerous cosmetic training courses are taking place.

An undercover reporter signed up for a one-day training course in ‘fat reduction’ procedures at Luxury Medical Aesthetics in Clapham. The salon charged £1,500 to teach the treatment.

The undercover footage shows the moment an incision is made in a client’s jawline before the beautician begins to remove fat with a ‘suction wand’ – a sharp, long metal tube that pierces the skin and crudely sucks fat out as the operator plunges it up and down beneath her skin. The client – who has had only local anaesthetic – is clearly experiencing pain, but the trainer continues regardless.

 “If we damage the nerves on one side, then we’re very, very careful on the other side,” the trainer tells her students. She even tries to reassure the group that during hundreds of procedures, she has only damaged “two nerves” and “one artery”.

Shockingly, despite having no prior experience, it isn’t long before she hands over the instrument to her students to have a go. The reporter then made her excuses and left before she was invited to join in, but despite this, she still passed the course, leaving with a certificate from Luxury Medical Aesthetics.

A Freedom of Information request found that, since 2021, there have been 1,193 ambulance callouts to businesses with ‘beauty’ or ‘aesthetics’ in the name, for reasons including “chest pain”, “immediate threats to life” and “major trauma”. In the last five years, there have been 670 complaints to local authorities about aesthetic procedures.

In the UK, there is no regulation to prevent non-medics from performing these procedures, while doctors face strict regulation from the General Medical Council (GMC).

Consultant plastic surgeon, Professor Iain Whitaker said, after viewing the footage, “I’ve been a doctor for over 22 years, and I never thought in my lifetime I’d see something like that. How she can be allowed to do this, with zero training, or medical background is just beyond belief. They’re just not thinking about the patient… it disgusts me, to be honest.”

ITV spoke to several women who experienced severe complications after visiting Luxury Medical Aesthetics. Keylea-Anne Griffiths, who underwent the fat reduction procedure, described excruciating pain as a hot metal rod pierced her skin. She also recalled seeing another client’s blood splattered on the salon wall.

After the procedure, Griffiths suffered temporary bladder damage and required emergency hospital treatment when she could not pass urine. When she reported the incident to the salon, it took two days to receive a dismissive response, with the salon blaming her for focusing on the equipment instead of aftercare advice.

It’s not just high-street liposuction treatments which are cause for concern. Liquid Brazilian butt lifts (BBLs) are also a popular choice for people searching for a fuller figure. Surgeons performing a BBL would typically inject fat from another part of the body into the buttocks. However, salons are able to offer a ‘non-surgical’ option, by inserting hundreds of millilitres of filler instead. Both options are very high risk.

In September, 33-year-old Alice Webb became the first person in the UK to die from a liquid BBL procedure at a clinic in south west England. Leaving behind her five daughters. Her partner, Dane Knight and his family are now calling for the introduction of Alice’s Law, which would make it illegal for anyone other than a registered Plastic Surgeon on the GMC specialist register, to operating from a Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulated environment, to perform buttock augmentation procedures using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers.

Government response and campaign for reform

Health Secretary Wes Streeting described the lack of regulation as “absolutely disgusting” and pledged to continue the regulatory review begun by the previous government. “We are working as fast as we can. We know that we need to act. We are taking this seriously,” he stated. However, he wasn’t able to provide a specific timeframe, frustrating campaigners who argue that laws have failed to keep pace with the rapidly growing, multi-million-pound industry.

Campaigners are demanding an overarching licensing system to protect patients and prevent further harm.