“Some worrying features of the cosmetic industry set it apart from conventional medical practice, including corporate business models which are alleged to place profit over patient safety, no medical need for cosmetic procedures, limited factual information for consumers and exponential growth in social media that emphasises benefits and downplays risks,” Mr Fletcher said.

Public consultation for the review will begin in early 2022 and it will report by mid-2022.

Panel member Alan Kirkland, CEO of CHOICE, said he was “appalled” by some of the personal stories that had been featured in media reports in recent weeks about issues in cosmetic surgery and was the key reason he decided to join the expert panel. “I have a strong interest in consumer protection,” he said.

“We’ve all got a right to assume that the system is protecting us from harm, protecting us from being misled about the nature of particular procedures or the risks involved in them and protecting them from unsafe practices and I’m really keen to understand through this process how well the system is currently doing that and where there might be opportunities for improvement.”

He said social media had changed the landscape of cosmetic surgery with procedures now promoted through Instagram and TikTok and available in shopping centres across the country.

Others on the panel include professor Anne Duggan, chief medical officer for the Australian Commission for the federal agency Safety and Quality in Health Care, which has patient safety as its central remit and Richelle McCausland, National Health Practitioner Ombudsman.

AHPRA is under the spotlight in a parliamentary inquiry headed by Greens senator Janet Rice, who last week announced a four-month extension to the inquiry to investigate allegations about cosmetic surgery following the media expose.

Under the current law anyone with a basic medical degree or a GP or dermatologist can call themselves a cosmetic surgeon, even though they aren’t registered specialist surgeons, who receive eight to 12 years of postgraduate surgical training like plastic surgeons.

State Health Ministers are currently consulting on possible changes to the national law to protect the title of ‘surgeon’.

The Australasian Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (ASAPS), said it has been calling for change for years and said the inquiry was “too little, too late” for those who were maimed by botched surgeries.

ASAPS President Dr Robert Sheen, said: “The laws exist, they are simply not being enforced. AHPRA is not regulating... It is time for AHPRA to exercise the responsibilities given to it under the National Law - a law that gives AHPRA the power to prevent patient harm in the first place.”