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Christmas idea: plastic surgery gift vouchers

If larger breasts, fuller lips and fewer wrinkles are on the Christmas wish list, cosmetic surgery gift vouchers could be the answer.

The number of Britons going under the knife for finer features has rocketed this year and some private clinics have started offering the vouchers to cope with demand.

“Husbands buy them for wives, or daughters for their mothers,” said Rebecca Johnson, a spokeswoman for Transform, one of the UK’s biggest commercial cosmetic surgery groups, which has sold hundreds of the vouchers this year. They range from 50 to 1,000 pounds ($90-1,800) and are mostly used for non-surgical procedures such as botox and skin peels, she added.

Most patients had already expressed an interest in plastic surgery before receiving a voucher, she said, and were not offended by the gift. The Transform group hosted “Cosmetic Surgery ... Live” in September, a series of British television programmes featuring live operations at a Transform clinic.

“We saw a rise in enquiries after the programme, certainly,” Johnson said. Plastic surgery is a growth industry in Britain.

“Before, if you asked a woman if she’d had a nose job or a face lift it was like asking her age ... but normalisation and a growing obsession with what we look like is key to why cosmetic surgery is growing,” said Sarah Winterbottom, spokeswoman for BUPA private hospitals. BUPA, which does not offer gift vouchers, compiled figures which show a 31 percent increase this year in cosmetic surgery — a conservative rise because non-surgical procedures such as botox and lip implants were not included.

Breast enlargement amongst 31-40 year-old women was their most popular procedure, accounting for almost half of cosmetic operations.

But not everyone is keen on the vouchers idea. “We’re worried by the implications of this because it portrays surgery as a commodity, the same as a book, perfume bottle or a handbag,” said consultant plastic surgeon Patrick Mallucci of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS). They were also concerned that trivialising cosmetic surgery could lead to complacency in patient care.

However, voucher recipients must see a doctor or surgeon to assess suitability for treatment before the voucher is claimed, Transform’s Johnson said. If treatment is not granted, the voucher is refunded. But the BAAP’s concerns were echoed by BUPA’s Winterbottom. “Cosmetic surgery is for life, not just for Christmas,” she said. reuters

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