‘Fly in, fly out’ cosmetic surgeons

Posted: 21/01/2013

The Sunday Times has reported that British cosmetic clinics are using hundreds of foreign surgeons for ‘fly in, fly out’ operations, many of them not insured in Britain. It notes that the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) is now calling on the Government to make it a legal requirement for all surgeons operating here to have UK medical indemnity insurance.

We support BAAPS in this move having dealt with a number of cases arising from private cosmetic surgery performed by a foreign surgeon and having faced difficulty and a lack of cooperation in establishing who the medical indemnity insurer was. Even once that is established, foreign insurers are not always quick to respond and may not have experience of the clinical negligence protocol we work to so that matters proceed efficiently as they should. This can make investigating the claim more difficult and time-consuming as a result. Additional costs are often occurred at no fault of the claimant.

We hope that due consideration will be given to the BAAPS proposal so that patients can undergo private cosmetic surgery with peace of mind that their surgeon has UK medical indemnity insurance.

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