Letter: Surgical `quick fix'

Sir: Changing Faces, the national charity which supports and represents people who have disfigurements to the face and body, welcomes the Government's commitment to tighten the regulation of cosmetic surgery and, in particular, its determination to improve the clinical advice given and to broaden the public information available (report, 24 January).

The aggressive marketing techniques currently used to promote cosmetic surgery suggest it is just another form of beauty enhancement, when actually all the procedures carry risk. What is worse, such marketing may actually encourage people to feel insecure about the way they look and suggest that physical perfection, supposedly achieved through cosmetic surgery, is the quick-fix recipe for success and happiness.

Changing Faces is constantly contacted by people of all ages and with various types of disfigurement, including those for whom cosmetic surgery has failed, who find the hyperbole associated with cosmetic surgery neither honest nor helpful.

JAMES PARTRIDGE

Chief Executive , Changing Faces

London WC1