Patients undergoing cosmetic surgery are at the mercy of an “unregulated mess” of an industry that puts marketing before safety with little risk of sanction, leading doctors warn today.

A regulator similar to Ofcom must be introduced to tackle the increasing incidence of poor practice, they say. Discount offers should be outlawed and a ban considered for promotions by clinics, such as billboard adverts.

The doctors, who include leading consultant plastic surgeons and medical regulators, say that greed, the lack of regulation, increased marketing and media hype were combining to make a “perfect storm” that threatened patients and practitioners alike.

The number of cosmetic surgical operations conducted by audited members of the profession has more than tripled to 34,000 since 2003, with tummy tucks, breast augmentation, nose jobs and eyebrow lifts among the most popular.

However, many procedures, such as dermal fillers to plump lips and smooth wrinkles, are also carried out on the high street and black market, fuelled by internet promotions, magazine advertising and aggressive discounting.

Nigel Mercer, president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, told The Times that drastic action had to be taken to control standards.

Tough restrictions on advertising were needed, while fillers, which are injected under the skin, had to be licensed as a medicine, he said.

Mr Mercer said that there were 77 fillers currently available in the UK that slipped under the radar as “devices”, requiring no more than an EU patent.

However, only seven fillers had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in the United States, he added.

“There is no overarching body that looks after cosmetic surgery in this country, Mr Mercer said. “It is an unregulated mess.”

Writing in a paper published today in Clinical Risk, the journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Mr Mercer states: “We have reached a stage where public expectation, driven by media hype and, dare one say, professional greed, has brought us to a ‘perfect storm’ in the cosmetic surgical market.”

Mr Mercer describes the proliferation of promotional marketing, including discount vouchers, two-for-one offers and holidays with surgery, which would be outlawed in any other area of medicine.

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