My Lords, this group of amendments concerns the licensing of non-surgical cosmetic procedures and other important considerations, such as hospital rehabilitation accommodation and the doctors’ register of interests. They all relate to the interests of patients.
I shall address particularly the issue of cosmetic procedures and I start by thanking the Minister and his Bill team for giving so much support, showing such interest and bringing this into being today. I know we all welcome it; it is much appreciated. I am glad to have taken part in the meetings and to have tabled an amendment in Committee relating to cosmetic regulation. The amendments before us today have been very much welcomed by medical associations, because we all know that lack of regulation has been a ballooning problem. For example, the Save Face organisation received more than 2,000 complaints of botched procedures in 2020 alone and the true number, as we know, is likely to be higher.
The other point to make is that this is a fast-moving industry and I am glad that these amendments will be able to keep pace with an ever-changing landscape. We have seen a significant rise in recent years in the number and type of non-surgical aesthetic procedures performed in the UK. Practitioners, both medically and non-medically trained, are performing procedures without even being able to evidence appropriate training and the required standards of oversight and supervision of procedures that can be described only as high- risk. When they go wrong—and we have all heard the stories of intense and lasting damage from untrained practitioners carrying out procedures in unlicensed premises—we all know that it will then fall to the NHS to pick up the pieces. This, today, is a meaningful step in protecting more people from rogue operators.
I close by thanking noble Lords for their contributions not only to this debate but to shaping the legislation. Once again, I thank the Minister and his team for all their efforts. I hope we will come to see a much safer set of non-surgical cosmetic procedures than we have at present.