Supervision and cosmetic licensing

» By exercising personal and professional accountability, it follows that the individual must oversee the outcome of the delegated task, making themselves available to assist and support as necessary, in other words, to supervise «

The primary legislation which facilitates and endorses a scheme of cosmetic licensing is now embedded in The Health & Care Act (2022). The secondary legislation, and the regulations which will follow, will arise from the decisions the Government makes following consultation. As part of the first consultation, the Department of Health and Social Care sought wide ranging public and stakeholder opinion regarding a proposed requirement for oversight, to be applied to certain higher risk procedures performed by non-healthcare practitioners, by an appropriate, named and regulated healthcare professional. This article explores the concept of oversight from a professional regulatory perspective with specific reference to the standards expected of its registrants by the Nursing & Midwifery Council.

The JCCP has made numerous recommendations to government to inform the development and direction of cosmetic licensing. The JCCP does not take a unilateral approach in making these recommendations, they are developed in response to a consensus of wideranging stakeholder opinion and the recommendations outlined in this article represent this approach, following firm agreement having been reached across professional and unregulated practitioner boundaries. The procedures to which they refer are limited to the Government's proposed ‘Amber’ category of procedures. It is to be noted that the recommendations made for a ‘Red’, highest risk category might fall out of scope of the licensing scheme as these procedures could be captured through CQC registration in the future, with additional legislation proposed to enable further restrictions which prohibit these procedures being performed by nondesignated individuals.