NHS staff ‘pick up the pieces’ after patients of failed obesity surgeries return from abroad with complications, doctors claim as around 5,000 travel overseas for cheaper cosmetic operations every year

NHS staff are being left to ‘pick up the pieces’ of a surgical tourism boom with patients returning to this country needing help for complications, doctors claim.

The British Medical Association said more people are dying or requiring emergency care in the UK after having gone abroad for cut-price obesity surgery.

The crisis is fuelling delays for routine care, including hip and knee replacements.

Around 5,000 people a year travel overseas for obesity surgery, where procedures can be significantly cheaper.

The British Medical Association said more people are dying or requiring emergency care in the UK after having gone abroad for cut-price obesity surgery (stock image)

Doctors said the internet made it easier than ever for people to arrange operations abroad, with social media increasing desire for cosmetic surgery.

Professor David Strain, from the BMA’s board of science, said: ‘You can get infections and the problem is people come back and they are asking the NHS to pick up the pieces of procedures that were done with less standards that we apply in the UK.’

The BMA’s annual meeting in Belfast backed a motion ‘expressing concern’ about surgical tourism and agreed there is a need for more UK-based weight management services, partly funded by a rise in sugar tax on fizzy drinks.