Marianne Green, 30, is one of an estimated 150,000 Britons who have flown to Turkey for cosmetic surgery in the past year. The experience was "brilliant," she says. "We had a hotel stay in Istanbul included in the price. They picked me up from the airport, took me to my hotel and drove me to my appointments."
Green paid £3,100 for breast implants and chose to travel to Turkey in April for the same reason so many people flock to clinics in Europe for cosmetic surgery: cost. "It's cheaper abroad," she says. Quotes from plastic surgeons near her home in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, came to "around £7,000." Green paid less than half that and got a four-star holiday with her partner as a package deal.
This week it was announced that SK:N Clinics, owner of cosmetic surgery firm Harley Medical Group, has gone into administration. Its website has been replaced with a static message reading: "The company has undertaken an extensive process to secure investment to enable it to continue trading but unfortunately we have not been successful."
The Birmingham-based company, founded in 1990, was one of the first to capitalise on Britain's cosmetic surgery boom, becoming one of the country's biggest providers, with 70 branches across the UK. It offered services ranging from acne and rosacea treatments to breast surgery, rhinoplasty and liposuction across its brands. The collapse highlights a wider problem facing the UK cosmetic surgery industry: how to compete with much cheaper sun-and-surgery packages offered abroad.
Figures from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) released earlier this year showed a challenging climate. A total of 25,972 surgical procedures were scheduled to be performed in the UK in 2023, a 16 per cent decline on the previous year. There were sharp declines in some of the most popular cosmetic procedures for younger women, with breast augmentation down 26 per cent, breast reduction down 17 per cent and abdominoplasty (a "tummy tuck") down 19 per cent.
BAAPS Chairman Marc Pacifico said: "This trend appears consistent with the increasing number of individuals choosing to travel abroad to destinations such as Turkey. However, this choice has significant implications, not only for those undergoing surgery abroad, but also for the NHS, which often bears the burden of correcting complications when patients return to the UK."
The price difference is significant. Before it went under, the most popular cosmetic procedures performed by Harley Medical Group ranged from £4,850 for liposuction to £9,950 for a facelift. Other private British doctors would charge more than double that. But at one popular Turkish clinic, liposuction starts at £3,000 and facelifts at £3,300. An uncertain economic climate in the UK, combined with a boom in medical tourism, means British cosmetic surgery providers are struggling to compete.
Dr Ash Soni is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon with clinics in Ascot, Berkshire and London. "Generally people look to European countries just to save money," he says, with Turkey being the most popular destination. "And I can tell you that we get calls every month from people who have gone to these countries and have had a problem or a complication. People do it to save money, but with the problems that can arise, they have to call someone [closer to home] to take care of it anyway."
He admits that this is a challenge for the industry. Surgeons who treat international patients with more disposable income - for Soni, that's patients traveling from Dubai - do better than those who treat only British patients, who spend less overall. "I'm grateful that my clinics, particularly my London clinics, cater to both a British and an international audience," he says. "That helps in terms of the number of procedures I end up doing per day."
Meanwhile, Britons - particularly younger women - continue to travel to cheaper European countries, where results can vary wildly. Patients who opt for a cheaper package abroad can "generally expect to have a worse outcome," says Soni. In the UK, it takes 10-15 years of training to become a specialist, while some in Turkey may have trained for as little as three years. Soni adds that some clinics offer non-surgical procedures such as fillers or Botox for "less than I buy my supplies for, which says a lot about the [materials] "They use it in that clinic."
"You can assume, broadly speaking, that the conditions are not going to be the same as here," he says. "People throw in a hotel room and all that stuff, but when push comes to shove and a problem arises as a result, patients are being let down." In the UK, "you're paying for the skill of the healthcare provider and the quality of the products used."
Soni is one of many practitioners and experts who have raised concerns about the safety of some procedures abroad. At the extreme end of the spectrum, there have been reports of surgeons conducting consultations mainly via WhatsApp and not providing adequate aftercare. At least 25 British citizens have died after undergoing surgery in Turkey in the past four years.
That's not to say that most patients who have visited Turkish clinics aren't happy with the results. Green used Clinic Center and says, "I feel confident in the level of support they provided." She recovered remarkably quickly: "They took me back to my hotel the next day and provided an interpreter so I could understand everything that was happening. I was back on my feet within three or four hours of my surgery," she says. "The next day I was out of the hospital, I went shopping, everything. I had a follow-up appointment two days after my surgery." Her procedure involved a four-night hospital stay (the NHS recommends not flying for five to seven days after breast surgery).
Like many people, Green heard about the clinic through social media: "I follow celebrities on Instagram and I saw one person, a Oak trees And Coronation Street star, had used the same clinic [in Turkey]. So I went with them."
For her, it was worth taking the risk of flying abroad for a better deal. "It's boosted my confidence; now I don't mind wearing low-cut tops and dresses. I'm happy to wear a bikini on holiday." When it comes to sun, sand and cheap surgery, British surgeons simply can't compete.
