Plastic surgeon Mr Greg Williams argues for the importance of professional standards and training in hair transplantation
Hair transplant surgery is becoming increasingly popular in the UK. Yet despite its growth, there is no official register of clinics in the UK offering this procedure, making it impossible to determine precisely how many exist nationwide. Although hair transplant surgery in England falls within the scope of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), there are ongoing concerns that a number of clinics offering the procedure may not be appropriately registered. Of those that are, many have never been inspected, and some remain rated ‘needs improvement’ for prolonged periods.
The issue currently facing the field is the lack of transparency regarding which parts of a hair transplant surgery procedure are ‘surgical’, and therefore should be performed by a doctor, and which steps are non-surgical and may be therefore delegated to non-doctor technician assistants.
Regulatory ambiguityDespite being described as ‘surgery’ and involving skin incisions, it remains unclear whether the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS England) formally recognises hair…
