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Cosmetic Surgery in Spain

The situation

Spain has become the cosmetic surgery capital of Europe, one of the five largest in the world along with the US, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. Its largest cosmetic surgery company operates 46 clinics within the country and is the first business of its kind to float on the European stock market. An estimated 500,000 procedures are carried out there every year by the country’s 900 state-registered plastic surgeons, with around another 6,000 surgeons at work outside the state-registered system.

The demand

Spain is the most popular foreign destination for Brits seeking to undergo cosmetic surgery abroad. It’s widely believed that the main reason for this is the long-term affinity UK citizens have with Spain as a holiday destination - indeed, many who travel to the Costas for treatment do so ensuring their surgery coincides with a break they will be taking anyway.

The costs aren’t as cheap as some of the other international cosmetic surgery hotspots (most notably Eastern Europe and South America), but thanks to plentiful budget flights and an abundance of cut-price accommodation, additional costs above and beyond the surgery itself can be kept relatively low (as little as £250 for a flight and accommodation package).

A face lift with two nights aftercare staying in a luxury hospital, for example, has an estimated cost of around £3,200 in Spain. For someone travelling from the UK, that’s a little over £3,500 for flights, the procedure, immediate aftercare and an additional seven-nights - the treatment alone costs between £4,300 and £6,000 in the UK.

How to stay safe

Language is always a potential problem when considering whether to undertake treatment abroad. Another of the attractions for UK citizens travelling to Spain is that, due to the large expat communities that already exist in the country, many facilities are bilingual or even chiefly English speaking.

The quality of medical training in Spain is generally high - after training to attain a degree in Medicine and Surgery, graduate doctors planning to specialise as surgeons undertake further, specialised, training (which, for plastic surgeons, takes five years). However, patients are advised to carefully check a surgeon’s credentials carefully.

Your surgeon must be ‘Titulo de Medico especialista en cirugia plastica y Repadora’ (which translates into Specialist in Plastic, Cosmetic and Reparative Surgery) to practise as a fully qualified cosmetic surgeon. If he or she is only ‘Licenciado’ (licenced), that means they are only qualified to practise medicine, not surgery.

The equivalent of BAAPS (British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery) in Spain is AECEP - the Asociación Española de Cirugia Estetica Plástica (Spanish Society for Cosmetic Surgery). Look out for this, or membership of the Sociedad Española de Cirugía Plástica, Reparadora y Estética (SECPRE, the Spanish Society for Plastic, Reparative and Cosmetic Surgery), which is equal to the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (BAPRAS).

Any surgical procedure, cosmetic or otherwise, carries risks. Discuss these with your chosen clinic before you proceed and be clear about what - if any - corrective treatment is included in a package. UK nationals, as members of the European Union, are entitled to receive medical treatment in Spain, but corrective cosmetic treatments do not qualify. This should be considered before going ahead.

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