Making cosmetic surgery safer

• Adhere to the GMC’s Guidance for Doctors who Offer Cosmetic Interventions (2016) and RCS’ Professional standards for cosmetic surgery (2016). Our standards set out the ethics and behaviour we expect of all surgeons who perform cosmetic surgery. They address key areas of risk for cosmetic surgery including communication with patients, consent, professional behaviours, and dealing with the psychologically vulnerable patient. It should be read in conjunction with the GMC guidance.
• Become certified in the area in which you practise. There is a public register of certified surgeons which allows patients and employers to find a certified surgeon.
• Ensure you have adequate professional indemnity insurance that covers the procedures you undertake.
• Make sure your advertising and marketing is realistic, ethical, honest and responsible and follows regulatory codes and guidelines set by the Committee of Advertising Practice. Refrain from using financial inducements - such as discounts, time-limited or two-for-one offers - that may influence the patient’s decision.
• Tell your patients about our online information resources and take account of our guidance when producing information for patients. 
• Make sure the needs of your patients are at the centre of the consultation discussion and that your patients are fully informed before you seek their consent for the procedure. Don’t delegate – it is your responsibility to discuss the procedure with the patient and to seek their consent. It is essential to a shared understanding of expectations and limitations that consent to a procedure is sought by the surgeon who will perform it or supervise its performance by another practitioner.
• Use our pre-surgery information checklist to help ensure your patients have received important information before surgery.
• Make sure your patients have at least two weeks between the consultation with you and the surgery, to help them make up their mind.
• Work towards collecting and reporting on the RCS’ data items, for every cosmetic surgical procedure, to ensure that appropriate data are collected to support audit and quality improvement.
• Encourage the use of SNOMED CT and the new cosmetic surgery subsets as the terminology of choice within your electronic health record system. This will ensure clearer and more consistent communication between different parts of the healthcare system. It will also allow for improved ability to extract activity data that accurately reflects practice as SNOMED terms link with the codes within OPCS and ICD10.
• Routinely collect and report on patient feedback. We recommend using the Q-PROMs tools for selected procedures.

Access the new tools and services here and read more information about the work we are doing to make cosmetic surgery safer.

• Only use surgeons with the right skills and experience to perform cosmetic surgery – the cosmetic surgery certification scheme allows patients and employers to find a certified surgeon. Before a surgeon has gained certification through our scheme, we strongly recommend that the surgeon is on the GMC’s specialist register in a relevant specialty and that they work within their area of specialty training.
• Make sure that your surgeons have adequate professional indemnity insurance that covers the cosmetic surgical procedures they undertake.
• Take account of the GMC’s Guidance for Doctors who Offer Cosmetic Interventions (2016) and RCS’ Professional standards for cosmetic surgery (2016). Our standards set out the ethics and behaviour we expect of all surgeons who perform cosmetic surgery. They address key areas of risk for cosmetic surgery including communication with patients, consent, professional behaviours, and dealing with the psychologically vulnerable patient. It should be read in conjunction with the GMC guidance.
• Make sure your advertising and marketing is realistic, ethical, honest, and responsible and follows regulatory codes and guidelines set by the Committee of Advertising Practice. Refrain from using financial inducements - such as discounts, time-limited or two-for-one offers - that may influence the patient’s decision.
• Tell your patients about our online information resources and take account of our guidance when producing information for patients. 
• Use our pre-surgery information checklist to audit the delivery of important pre-operative information between the operating surgeon and the patient.
• Comply with the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) requirements about data collection and reporting. Submit information to PHIN and where routine collection is not yet possible, analyse locally through audit.
• Work towards collecting and reporting on the RCS’ data items for every cosmetic surgical procedure, to ensure that appropriate data are collected to support audit and quality improvement.
• Use SNOMED CT and the new cosmetic surgery subsets as the terminology of choice within your electronic health record system. This will ensure clearer and more consistent communication between different parts of the healthcare system. It will also allow for improved ability to extract activity data that accurately reflects practice as SNOMED terms link with the codes within OPCS and ICD10.
• Routinely collect and report on patient feedback. We recommend using the Q-PROMs tools for selected procedures.

Access the tools and services here and read more information about the work we are doing to make cosmetic surgery safer.