How Britain’s cosmetic surgery industry bankrupted itself

As SK:N Clinics goes bust and more Britons travel abroad for plastic surgery, what’s next for the industry in Britain?

Marianne Green, 30, is one of an estimated 150,000 Britons who flew to Turkey for cosmetic surgery over 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, took me to my appointments.” 
Green paid £3,100 for breast implants and chose to go to Turkey in April for the same reason so many are flocking to clinics across Europe for cosmetic surgery: cost. “It’s cheaper abroad,” she says. Quotes from plastic surgeons near her home in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, came out “around the £7,000 mark.” Green paid less than half that and got a holiday with her partner at a four-star hotel in a package deal.
This week, it was announced that the SK:N Clinics company, which owns the cosmetic surgery firm Harley Medical Group, had collapsed. Its website has been replaced by a static message saying: “The company has undertaken an extensive process to secure investment to enable it to continue trading, but sadly we have been unsuccessful.”
The Birmingham-based firm, founded in 1990, was one of the first to capitalise on Britain’s cosmetic surgery boom. It became one of the nation’s largest providers, with 70 branches across the UK. Across its brands, it provided services from acne and rosacea treatment to breast surgery, rhinoplasty and liposuction. Its collapse highlights a broader problem facing Britain’s cosmetic surgery industry – how can it complete with much cheaper sun-and-surgery packages offered abroad? 
Figures from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) published earlier this year reveal a challenging climate. A total of 25,972 surgical procedures were performed in the UK in 2023, a 16 per cent drop from the previous year. There was a stark fall in some of the most popular cosmetic procedures for younger women: breast augmentation was down 26 per cent, breast reduction down 17 per cent, and abdominoplasty (a “tummy tuck”) down 19 per cent. 
The president of the BAAPS, Marc Pacifico, said: “This trend appears consistent with the increasing number of individuals opting to travel abroad to destinations like Turkey. However, this choice comes with significant consequences, not only for the individuals undergoing surgery overseas but also for the NHS, which often bears the burden of correcting complications upon patients’ return to the UK.” 
The difference in price is significant. Before it went under, fees for the most popular cosmetic procedures provided by the Harley Medical Group ranged from £4,850 for liposuction and £9,950 for a facelift. Other private British practitioners would charge more than double that. Yet at a popular Turkish clinic, liposuction starts from £3,000 and facelifts from £3,300. An uncertain economic climate in the UK, coupled with a boom in medical tourism, means that British cosmetic surgery providers struggle to compete. 
Dr Ash Soni is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon with clinics in Ascot, Berkshire, and London. “As a trend in general, people are looking at European countries to go to simply to save money,” he says, with Turkey being the most popular destination. “And I can tell you we get calls every month from people who’ve gone and had an issue or a complication from these countries. People are doing it to save money, but with the issues that can arise, they have to call someone [closer to home] to take care of it anyway.” 
He admits this is a challenge for the industry. Surgeons who cater for international patients with more disposable income – for Soni, this includes patients who travel from Dubai – fare better than those who treat only UK patients, who are spending less across the board. “I’m grateful that my clinics, especially my London-based clinics, are targeting both a UK and an international audience,” he says. “That helps in terms of the number of procedures that I end up doing per day.” 
Meanwhile, Britons – especially younger women – continue to travel to cheaper countries in Europe, where results may wildly vary. Patients who opt for a cut-price package abroad can “broadly expect a worse result,” Soni says. In the UK, 10-15 years of training is required to become a specialist, whereas some in Turkey may have trained for just three years. Soni adds that some clinics offer non-surgical procedures such as filler or Botox for “less than I buy my materials for, which tells you everything about the [materials] they’re using in that clinic.” 
“You can broadly expect that the conditions will not be the same as they would be here,” he says. “People are throwing in a hotel room and all that stuff, but when push comes to shove and there’s an issue that’s developed as a consequence of it, patients are being left stranded.” In the UK “you’re paying for the skill of the provider, and the quality of the products being used.”
Soni is one of many practitioners and experts who have raised concerns about the safety of some procedures abroad. At the most extreme end of the spectrum, there have been rumours of surgeons carrying out consultations mainly via WhatsApp and failing to provide sufficient aftercare. At least 25 British citizens have died following surgery in Turkey in the past four years.
That’s not to say most patients who have visited Turkish clinics aren’t happy with the results. Green used Clinic Center and says, “I’m confident in the level of support they offered.” She had a remarkably swift recovery: “They dropped me back to my hotel the day afterwards and provided a translator so I could understand everything that was going on. I was up and about within three or four hours after my surgery,” she says. “The day after, I was out of the hospital, shopping, everything. I had a check-up appointment two days after my operation.” Her procedure included a four-night hospital stay (the NHS recommends you do not fly for five to seven days after breast surgery). 
Like many people, Green heard about the clinic via social media: “I follow celebrities on Instagram and saw one person, a Hollyoaks 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.” Compared with sun, sand and cut-price surgery, British surgeons just can’t compete.
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