Surgical Mesh Implants

Debate between Albert Owen and Sarah Wollaston

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Dr Wollaston]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, but many women were not even informed that they had the devices in the first place. Other Members have touched on the fact that because the complications can be late in arising and because of the inadequacy of recording, it is very difficult for women to come forward.

In the brief time available, I would like to mention the yellow card scheme—I will add links on my social media later—which enables women to self-report complications. However, if someone does not know they have had the device fitted they will not report those complications. There is work to raise awareness among GPs of the possibility that symptoms that women present with are related to mesh, to ensure that those women are referred. I welcome the specialist centres that have been set up to treat women who have been so adversely affected by mesh, but if mesh is inserted in the first place, it should absolutely be done in specialist centres.

I do not agree that we should ban mesh, because for some women the symptoms of stress urinary incontinence or prolapse can be life-altering. We should retain it as an option where alternative procedures may create worse outcomes or worse complications, but there must be adequate consultation with women about the risks so that they can weigh them up. I agree with Members who have said they hope that NICE can prioritise the development of more detailed guidance, so that we may have it as soon as possible.

A fundamental absence of data is at the heart of the issue. There has been cavalier practice, and we cannot allow that to continue. The women who have been affected deserve an apology and recognition of the extent of the problem and the delays in recognising and dealing with it. I welcome the findings of the mesh oversight group report, which describes pragmatic and practical recommendations, but clear failings have been allowed to continue for so long. At the heart of those failings is the inadequacy of clinical trials, recording and consent. Finally, we know that the devices are regulated by the European Union. I hope the Minister will comment on how the Government propose to take this issue forward after we leave the European Union. At the heart of it is the need to ensure that the safety of women is prioritised at all times.

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

I thank the Chair of the Health Committee.

Coastguard Service

Debate between Albert Owen and Sarah Wollaston

Thursday 24th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Albert Owen]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising the issue of language. I wish to refer to the Welsh language and phonetics in relation to place names.

My first example is, fortunately, an empty canoe that was drifting of Morfa Nefyn in Gwynedd, which the coastguard had to spell phonetically as “mor fen evon” and which he wrote down as Morefen Effon. I shall give the Hansard reporters the correct pronunciations because I would not expect them to have that local knowledge, but the serious issue is that outside people would not be able to local Morfa Nefyn. A holidaymaker had failed to look after their canoe, which drifted off, but if the incident had been serious, and if someone had fallen out of it, they might have been lost for ever. I am making a serious point. I am grateful to the Minister for giving me the information, but the proposals would not have been adequate in such a situation and no team could have been tasked for that one.

In another incident at Cemaes in my constituency, in the north of Anglesey, a casualty had fallen down a 20-foot cliff. Like many parts of Wales and of the United Kingdom, we have some great coastal walks. According to the incident log, it took 13 minutes to make a decision, and the Holyhead coastguard was given the task when there was an initial response team located at Cemaes itself. That added to the time taken to respond. Following the request being made by the initial response team and Cemaes being paged, a staggering 48 minutes had passed since the initial call was made.

The terrain was so bad that a helicopter had to be scrambled for safe evacuation, and the irony is that the 22 Squadron search-and-rescue helicopter was just down the road on Anglesey. If there had been local knowledge, the scramble would have happened instantly and the victim’s injuries would have been less serious. My point about time factors is important. When RAF Valley was tasked to go to the incident, it was 68 minutes later.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but the problem is not always pronunciation. Sometimes there are problems with the sheer number of locations with the same name and spelling. We have 12 Cod rocks in my area, and someone local wrote to me recently about a serious incident when he was stranded off Cod rock.

[Albert Owen]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention, but I have moved on from pronunciation to actual mistakes.

My third and final example of problems with place names is extremely important. It involves a call to ambulance control about a person in the water at Tywyn in Meirionnydd in Gwynedd, but the Rhyl coastguard team was scrambled and departed to Towyn in Conwy. I hope that the hon. Lady is listening, because she has just intervened on this point. Towyn and Tywyn are 80 miles apart. It was realised that a mistake had been made, but it was some 16 minutes later that the air ambulance picked up the victim. That is serious and those examples are evidence.

The Minister may check that those incidents happened, because they were logged as errors. They are good examples of what might happen if outside areas were involved. In my area, the suggestion is that there might be a hub at Liverpool or Belfast, but they, let alone the marine operation centres at Aberdeen and on the Solent, could certainly not deal with such incidents. It would be impossible to have Welsh or Gaelic speakers in all those locations all the time. Local knowledge is extremely important and I make no apology for describing those incidents to the House.

Holyhead is the busiest seaport on the western seaboard and an extremely important location. It is a long way from Swansea, which would be the only day centre left open in Wales. I say to the Minister that coastal tourism must be factored into the matter, because many people go to the coast for their holidays and they need to know that coastguard stations are manned by people with local experience and local knowledge.

The flawed consultation document of 16 December was vague on leisure activities. Does the Minister have detailed information that was not in the consultation document about the different levels of leisure incident that have taken place? I know that some larger vessels have technical equipment—certainly, they are improving—but we must also consider walkers, sailors, climbers, hikers and people who go out on sea beds and drift away. We need that information, because a growing number of people are visiting our coastlines and they do not have the satellite equipment that is carried by, for example, many larger vessels.

There has also been growth in the number of incidents. The consultation document states that there has been a 25% increase in coastguard incidents off the United Kingdom coastline over the past five years alone. We have a growing industry that will be threatened by the mass closure of coastguard stations.

I understand that in 2009— [Interruption.] I am sorry, Mr Crausby, but I must refer to the MCA, who are smiling as I raise those issues. It is not helpful for coastguard officials to smile during this debate. I am not smiling, and I am sure the Minister would not be happy to see it. I am providing empirical evidence and giving my opinion on behalf of coastguard stations along the coast. I have experience of coastal communities and have worked at sea, so I do not like to see this happening and it is not fair. A degree of arrogance is coming from senior MCA managers towards local knowledge, and that is being echoed by somebody smiling at me while I am making pertinent points in the debate.

I support the upgrade and the modernisation of technology. That needs to happen and in the 21st century we must have more than two stations talking to each other; we need a fully integrated system. I back that idea and the review carried out by my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), when he was Minister responsible for shipping, on improving the conditions and wages of coastguards. That needs to be looked at, but it is not necessary to have a mass closure programme to improve the safety of our coastlines.

Even at this eleventh hour, I appeal to the Minister to scrap the proposals, await the Transport Committee report and listen to what people—whether Members of Parliament or members of the public—have been saying. We need a proper debate so that we can improve our coastguard services and have confidence in an improved, 21st-century technology. We must have the safest coastlines so that people can feel safe, whether they ply their trade at sea or use the sea for recreational purposes. I know that the Minister wants that outcome. It is certainly the outcome that I want, but there are better ways of achieving it than having this flawed consultation.