"This positive move should help to raise standards within the debt collection industry and offer a greater level of protection for the consumer, " Scott Soutar, Credit Services Association said.

BBC: Debt collectors face tougher controls

Mr Soutar, who is also an honorary senior lecturer at Glasgow University, said patients were so desperate for surgery that many were willing to forsake the next year's holiday to pay for treatment.

BBC: A model on a beach

Consultant plastic surgeon David Soutar, of Canniesburn Plastic Surgery Unit in Glasgow - the largest in Scotland, said Scots were happy to fork out to try to obtain the slim, muscular figures they had witnessed.

BBC: A model on a beach