Bupa tests face lifts for mass market

Private healthcare group Bupa is planning to offer cut-price cosmetic surgery to customers in an effort to bring it into the mass market.

Bupa is testing cosmetic surgery in four of its 29 hospitals and intends to roll out the service nationally at the end of the year, say informed sources. Bupa’s agency, Ogilvy & Mather, is understood to be drawing up ads for a national campaign.

The intention is to make the UK market like the US, where cosmetic surgery is mainstream.

Private plastic surgery, which is largely unregulated, can cost anything up to 10,000 for a face-lift. Bupa plans to undercut this figure substantially.

A Bupa spokesman says the company has never marketed cosmetic surgery until this test market, though plastic surgeons have worked at Bupa hospitals for some time.