Cosmetic surgery on the NHS - should it be allowed?

And he gets no choice as you never let him go anywhere without you. How insecure can you be!

Anything else would have to be an improvement. He's just biding his time then one day he will be gone. Just wait & see.

Oh, I see the score is 2-2 now btw.

I'm highly aware what private treatment costs including the 'overall package' price breakdown etc etc. It costs a lot. It's likely that if something has affected someones quality of life substantially, they are unlikely to be able to work hard enough to have the money to get it fixed.

On a broader scale I would argue that there is no reason other than government incompetence and poor prioritization that taxpayers money 'cannot fund' a fully functioning mental and physical state healthcare system.

Healthcare policy should be decided on the basis of empathy - how would I feel if I was in their position, and the choice of an individual over their treatment or lack of it.

Objectivity and unbiasness is rarely fair or helpful.

Would you honestly rather I judge whether you needed treatment or not than yourself. Given that Idon't care about you, have no emotional involvement with you, and am therefore pretty unbias.

Spoken like someone who's never had the piss taken out of them for how they look day in day out

Oh believe me I had far more than my share of petty comments and sneers from girls at high school, the thing is I just dealt with it, learnt to make the most of it, and moved on. I didn't go and have a major operation and take on all those risks associated with it, to change things.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with you judging by your profile pic so I imagine that was pretty easy. Personally I would rather have a 90 minute op over 'dealing with it' for years. Jesus, you get judged for looking 'wrong', and you get judged for putting it right!

Someone I know has just had cosmetic surgery on the NHS. It's not normally allowed except to correct health issues, but she claimed it was making her depressed about herself and they allowed her to have it (she had a chin reduction).

On one hand, it was clearly something she was insecure about and she's definitely more confident now after she's undergone the surgery.

However it is using money from taxpayers, which could be spent on treatment for a patient with a life-threatening illness.

And more philosophically, is this sending the wrong message? She's adopted the attitude that she's 'beaten everyone who ever called her ugly' because she's pretty now, but this could easily be seen as her giving in to the media's idea of beauty, i.e. sending the message 'your life sucked because you were ugly, but now you fit the media's standards of beauty more, your life will get better'.

What do you think? And if you had something about your physical features seen as extremely unattractive in today's society, would you consider plastic surgery? If it was avaliable on the NHS would you take it or would you go private?

TL;DR: What are your views on purely cosmetic surgery given to people on the NHS?

So mental health isn’t an important enough reason? Why is it that if you care about how you look you get called vain and shallow?There is actually a huge difference between simply wanting bigger boobs and feeling depressed about how you look, because believe me, it happens. There are studies that show how plastic surgery greatly improved peoples happiness, self esteem and quality of life-some of whom were on anti depressants before. Yes, how ‘vain and shallow of them.’ In fact, the top benefit listed for a facelift on Harley Medical UK is ‘Increased self-confidence and self-esteem.’ Its better to fix the cause of the depression than wasting the same amount of money on therapy trying to convince the person that they don’t have a problem in the first place. Many people’s mental health is affected by how they look-is that such a crime?