Taming the ‘wild west’ of aesthetic practice

Happy New Year to all our readers and contributors. As we enter not only a new year, but a new decade, the Journal of Aesthetic Nursing reflects upon the past few years within the aesthetics sector and looks forward to the changing landscape.

Presently, education and advertising guidelines are two of the main pillars pushing forward for change within the field of aesthetics, held up by nurses and doctors, and with safety being pushed to the forefront of mind. Earlier last month, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) announced further changes regarding the advertisement of botulinum toxin (ASA and CAP, 2020). CAP, who write advertising rules, have worked with the MHRA on this notice, which will be enforced by the ASA. The Enforcement Notice details how prescription-only medicines (i.e. botulinum toxin injections) cannot be advertised to the public and acknowledges that many aesthetic businesses use social media platforms to do just this. However, from 31 January 2020, the ASA, CAP and MHRA will be using new monitoring technology that will be used to automatically find and remove such posts online. However, the proposal seems to overlook the fact that dermal fillers are not prescription-only medicines, so anyone can carry on advertising and administering these to members of the public. Furthermore, this is not the only change set afoot in the sector this year. Shortly after the Enforcement Notice announcement, the BBC reported a proposal put forward by the Scottish Government regarding regulation within the aesthetics sector (BBC, 2020). The proposal details that non-healthcare professionals (the beauticians and hairdressers we so regularly see in the news administering injectable treatments with disastrous results) should require a licence to carry out aesthetic treatments, granted if they are deemed to be adequately trained. According to the BBC, the Scottish Government ‘aims to have a licensing framework in place within months’ (BBC, 2020). So, what does this mean for aesthetics?