Elective surgery requires better control

Strengthening supervision key to promoting healthy, safe growth of booming sector

Authorities have tightened supervision of the medical cosmetology industry and will use trans-departmental mechanisms to regulate its development, and protect the rights of consumers.

Eleven central departments including the State Administration for Market Regulation, the National Health Commission and the ministries of public security and commerce and the General Administration of Customs released a guideline requiring counterpart authorities to tighten supervision of the medical cosmetology industry last month.

The goal of the guideline is to maintain order in the market, protect health and safety, and encourage development of the sector.

It calls for authorities to adopt a problem-oriented approach, and to treat both the symptoms and the root causes of issues facing the industry according to the law, as well as to coordinate with each other.

It also tasked authorities with optimizing management of the medical cosmetology market, strengthening supervision both during and after treatment, deepening cross-departmental supervision, and adapting the regulatory system to the sector's development, to ensure that its growth is healthy.

Prominent issues such as illegal medical practices, counterfeit products, misleading publicity and excessive pricing have come to light as a result of the sector's rapid development, and have seriously endangered the health and interests of consumers according to an anonymous official from the State Administration for Market Regulation.

Between September and February, the State Administration for Market Regulation and 10 other central departments ran a special operation to deal with the most prominent problems.

Illegal institutions and violators were punished, a number of typical cases were investigated, and multiple long-term mechanisms were created, which helped curb ambient disorder in the sector, according to the SAMR.

However, supervision still faces challenges, and the industry still experiences occasional periods of chaos. Therefore, further improvements to the cross-departmental supervision mechanism are needed to raise regulatory efficiency and maintain a sense of order during diagnosis and treatment, as well as in the market, to protect health and lives, the official said.

According to the document, market regulation departments should oversee the scope of business medical cosmetology applicants seek, and ensure applicants make a written commitment not to engage in prohibited projects before they are given approval to operate. These commitments will be published publicly via the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System.

Authorities are also to improve the qualification examination, and any medical cosmetology services related directly to medical activities, as well as institutions without the necessary health administration permits issued, are banned from providing further services.

To do so, health departments must refine the examination and approval standards and process, and control entry to the industry by new applicants. Details of every institution will be published after they have been licensed to practice by health departments.

In addition, market supervision departments and health administrations will share information regarding medical cosmetology institutions.

The documents tasks provincial departments with identifying concerns in their own medical cosmetology sector, and with placing matters such as diagnosis and treatment, marketing, drugs and medical devices on their list of regulatory priorities, and with updating that list regularly.

Health departments, other regulatory departments and judicial organs shall, in accordance with their respective duties, report risks uncovered in the sector, and establish a mechanism to better discover and handle them in order to properly and rapidly crack down on illegal behavior.

Unlicensed institutions, or those which employ staff without the necessary medical qualifications or abilities, may not engage in consultation, guidance or even use the internet to publish information about cosmetology, popular science or any other kind of professional information.

Illegal behavior such as making promises that do not conform to the law or to medical norms during consultation, commercial bribery or the shilling of drugs shall be severely punished.

Supervision of training is also to be tightened, and acts such as offering training to staff lacking medical qualifications, or promises to issue "professional" certificates will be strictly penalized.

The document requires that in addition to strengthening the supervision of the medical cosmetology industry an intensive crackdown on disorder within the sector is to be maintained in order to remove institutions, doctors, medicines and medical facilities that do not conform to the law, and mandates the introduction of regulations to prevent bad money from driving out good money, which will result in a fairer and more orderly market environment and healthy development, the unnamed official said.

Regulation undertaken by many departments already focuses on the medical cosmetology industry, which is a good thing, and legally registered and run institutions warmly welcome tightened supervision, said Qin Yong, general manager of Sichuan Zhongke Jingmei Hospital Investment.

"Thanks to a large population, the medical cosmetology sector, technological progress and market cultivation have greatly developed. Medical cosmetology itself is closely related to economic development," he said.

According to data from Qichacha, a leading platform that provides data and analytics on private and public companies, there are 97,800 medical cosmetology-related companies in China, among which 28,500 were registered in 2021, a 225.7 percent increase on the previous year.

Last year, a further 33,400 companies were registered. In the first quarter of this year, 9103 new companies were registered, up 33.5 percent year-on-year.

Strong demand lies behind this explosive growth. The number of Chinese users of medical cosmetology is expected to reach 23.54 million this year, according to data released by Soyoung, a medical aesthetics platform.

There are tens of thousands of registered medical cosmetology institutions in the country, and according to Qin, there are almost as many unregistered institutions in operation, as well.

He added that in the past, people did not view medical cosmetology as medical intervention, and excessive commercialization led to disorder in the sector.

The guidelines have made it explicit that medical cosmetology is medical intervention, which should help standardize the sector, he said.