Breast and Cosmetic Implant Registry for Northern Ireland and Scotland

Data Provision Notice to provide NHS England with data relating to breast implant procedures completed by both NHS and private healthcare providers in Northern Ireland and Scotland, to include in the Breast and Cosmetic Implant Registry

NHS England has developed a Breast and Cosmetic Implant Registry (BCIR) which is expected to capture the details of all breast implant procedures completed by both the NHS and private healthcare providers in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Department of Health and Social Care, England directed NHS England to carry out this work in response to Recommendation 21 of the Keogh Review of the Regulation of Cosmetic Interventions. 

The primary purpose of the BCIR is to record the details of any patient who has had breast implant surgery for any reason so that they can be traced in the event of a product recall or other safety concern relating to a specific type of implant.  As a secondary purpose, the BCIR will also allow the identification of possible trends and complications relating to specific implants which could be used as an early warning of a potential issue. Should a product recall arise, an agreed process will be followed.

This Data Provision Notice is issued to provide for the full participation in the BCIR by health care providers in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Note that explicit consent will be required from individual patients in Northern Ireland to add their patient details to the Registry in addition to the usual consent for the surgical procedure. A patient information leaflet is available to help providers capture consent. 

This Notice is served on:

• cosmetic surgery providers within both health and social care trusts in Northern Ireland and the Independent Sector in Northern Ireland
• cosmetic surgery providers within both NHS boards in Scotland and the independent sector in Scotland

The BCIR was launched in Scotland in 2019 and Northern Ireland in January 2021 and will be an ongoing collection. Providers will need to develop local processes as to when and how data is entered into the system, but NHS England advises that it is best practice to submit the data as close to the surgery as possible.

NHS England will publish an annual report once per year on activity in the BCIR; this will include a review of data quality. The report will contain aggregate data for all providers submitting data to the BCIR across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

October 2023

Update to DPN to reflect change of data collection platform and data processor that will occur with migration to the Outcome Registries Platform. Inclusion of Scotland in the Data Provision Notice (DPN) as this was not required by IG at the time that Scotland joined the BCIR in 2019.