UK's Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has urged the private health clinics in the UK to "step up to their responsibilities" in the faulty breast implants case.

Lansley has said that the private clinics that fitted their patients with faulty breast implants and think they should be removed must base the financial cost of removing them for the women. Lansley asked the private medical centers should offer a similar to those patients who had paid for cosmetic surgery.

"I am not happy about private providers not stepping up to their responsibilities at all. I think the argument that they somehow can't afford to do so begs the question: where was their insurance? Where were they insuring themselves against their liabilities? I think their ability to meet their liabilities to their patients should be one of the issues we look at," he said.

French firm, Poly Implant Prostheses (PIP) sold as many as 300,000 implants around the world, which were found to be harmful to the health of the women. The implants were found to be with industrial-grade silicone gel and were linked with risks of cancer. The company was closed down in France and ban was imposed on the implants.

The European Commission is expected to present proposals later this year with much tougher rules and regulations. The commission ahs been reviewing the rules form the last three years and will present its recommendations later this year.

In the UK, there are about 40,000 women who received the implants out of which 2,000 of them had them for medical reasons under the National Health Service. Some women are pursuing legal actions against clinics that used implants.