While there are many brilliantly talented and highly skilled plastic and cosmetic surgeons working in the industry today, the standard of care you can expect to receive is sadly not guaranteed to be as high as you would hope when you go under the knife.

Unfortunately, there are still a lot of inadequately regulated surgeons, who lack the vast amounts of experience and high level qualifications that are absolutely necessary to practice such life-changing surgeries.

Care Standards Act

The Care Standards Act that was introduced by the UK government in 2002 to enforce the regulation of clinics and surgeries, pushing up the standards of care people can expect to receive in private practices. The Act was brought in with the aim of putting an end to the days when people would simply choose a surgery based on the adverts they had seen on television or in magazines, leaving themselves exposed to the potential mistakes made at surgeries where more money was spent on advertising than the hiring of suitably trained staff.

The Act requires by law that national minimum standards of recruitment, staff training, and staff qualifications must be met. Private institutions offering cosmetic and plastic surgery must comply with these national standards, and they must also offer all patients any counselling they require as well as a formal complaints procedure.

Surgery claims still rife

Despite the fact that the Care Standards Act has been in force for just short of a decade, the cosmetic and plastic surgery industry remains the focus of hundreds of cosmetic and plastic surgery claims each year, from patients who have been left physically, mentally or emotionally scarred by their experience. A shocking number of people are left disappointed by the cosmetic surgery that they have often spent years and years saving up to pay for. But worse than the disappointment is the severe pain and disfigurement that the least fortunate patients are forced to endure when they have gone under the knife of an inexperienced, under-qualified surgeon.

Common claims

The spectrum of complaints following cosmetic surgery is as wide and varied as the surgeries themselves, but there are a number of all-too-common errors that surgeons still make on a regular basis, leaving many people with no option but to file a claim for compensation against their surgeon.

Liposuction is a popular surgery option for people who are looking to achieve their desired body shape. However, a number of liposuction surgeries each year result in perforation of the bowel or other parts of the abdomen, leaving patients requiring further expensive surgery to restore them to health. The degree of scarring as a result of liposuction is also a common cause of complaint, with far too many patients being left with visible scars that again require repeat visits to surgeons to cover up.

Breast augmentations, including uplifts and reductions, can often leave scarring too, while facelifts that go wrong leave patients particularly vulnerable to visible scarring.

Making a claim

All of the above issues affect hundreds of cosmetic surgery patients each year. But no one should suffer alone – help is at hand through expert medical solicitors who can help you get the compensation you need and deserve.