Reality TV star Chloe Goodman trains in botox and fillers and opens clinic with no medical training
Ex on the Beach and Celebrity Big Brother star Chloe Goodman will be offering botox and filler treatments to members of the public at her new clinic in Leeds opening on October 13.
The 23-year-old former page 3 model and Cameron Diaz body double announced the launch of Opiah Cosmetics on Twitter and Instagram saying “It’s been a long road with lots of studying and exams but I am overjoyed to be an aesthetic practitioner”.
Under UK regulatory loop-holes surrounding cosmetic injectable treatments in the UK, Goodman undertook a course to enable her to train in botox and fillers but is not a trained medical doctor or nurse or even a qualified beauty therapist. She trained as an “aesthetic practitioner” with Cosmetic Couture who hit the headlines last year after controversially offering human head dissection courses to beauty therapists in order to train them in cosmetic injectables.
“Calling yourself an aesthetic practitioner when you have no medical training is incredibly worrying” said BAAPS and Plastic Surgery Group member Dan Marsh, “Medical practitioners undergo years of training and are able to deal with the complications that may arrive from these treatments. A reality TV star taking shortcuts to be able to inject these products into the faces of members of the public astounds me and makes a mockery of the industry.”
Only medical prescribers are able to legally prescribe botulinum toxin and anyone having treatment should be seen face-to-face by the person prescribing the anti-wrinkle drug for them. But lack of retribution and slack laws surrounding who can administer the drug means that non-medics are providing treatments regardless of a lack of adequate training and risk to the patient.
Dermal fillers pose even more of a concern as they are not regulated at all in the UK, but can cause serious complications in un-trained hands, such as tissue necrosis (death of the cell tissue), infections and even blindness.
The #SafetyInBeauty campaign reported a record year of complaints in 2015 and BAAPS said two out of three surgeons had seen patients suffering complications from dermal fillers.
Mo Akhavani, consultant plastic surgeon from the Plastic Surgery Group commented, “In the right hands, dermal fillers are a fantastic treatment for re-volumising and enhancing the face but it is wrong to think that because they are cosmetic in nature they are not medical. There can be serious complications from dermal fillers and this is why it is so important that members of the public safeguard themselves by only going to a medically trained doctor, nurse or surgeon.”
Earlier this year, Health Education England (HEE) published the final part of its report outlining standards and levels of training cosmetic practitioners should achieve in order to be safely carrying out these treatments on the public. It suggests anyone performing dermal fillers should be trained to post-graduate or masters’ degree level (MSc) which means that in the current climate, no non-medic would be considered qualified. Although these guidelines are not legally binding they do offer a benchmark for standards of training.
The news of a non-medically trained TV star setting up a clinic has outraged the medical aesthetics community which has branded it another example exploiting the lack of regulation in the UK and putting vulnerable patients at risk.
Marsh added, “You only have to look at the media stories to see how many non-medically qualified ‘practitioners’ are carrying out substandard and dangerous work on members of the public. We agree [with HEE] that specialised training is required and aesthetic injectables should only ever be provided by medical professionals who are qualified to deal with any potentially serious complications.”
