Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review

Alex Norris Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to speak for the Opposition in this important debate and I commend the Backbench Business Committee for choosing it. It has been an excellent debate and that started with those who secured the debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) and the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) on securing the debate and on their leadership of the all-party parliamentary group on surgical mesh. There were common themes: the hope we all felt when we read the Cumberlege review a year ago and how keen we all are to make further progress. The right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell said he wanted to reinvigorate the debate. I think that that has happened today—very much so.

I also recognise the contributions of the right hon. Members for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) because we probably would not be here without their personal leadership. I do not think it is a secret that we on the Labour Benches sometimes disagree with them on matters of health policy, but not in this regard and particularly not with their iron clad commitment to patient safety.

I want to pay a special tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), my predecessor as shadow public health Minister. It tells us everything we need to know about her that she might have gone on to other roles on the Opposition Front Bench, but she is still at it on these issues. It is never just a job for her, but a campaign and a drive to do it. We are very lucky to have her. She helmed an all-star cast of Labour Members who have been working very hard on this issue: my hon. Friends the Members for Blaydon (Liz Twist) and for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) on sodium valproate; and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) with her leadership and passion around Primodos. I thought their contributions were very good indeed.

Today is the first anniversary of the publication of the Cumberlege review. It was a seismic report, one that vindicated campaigners who in many cases had fought for decades. It showed how they had been denied, derided and ignored. Crucially, it gave us nine concrete ways forward—nine ways to start to meet the obligation we have to these women and the families affected. I wish we had heard in the oral statement the following day last year an acceptance from the Government of all the recommendations and I wish we were speaking about the progress we had made in implementing all nine. I am sad that we are not. However, I will start by recognising the progress that has been made.

The apology was very widely welcomed. The patient safety commissioner will have a really big impact in this area—we just need to get on with appointing them. I am very proud of the work the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) and I did with the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) on the identifiable database for medical devices. That will prove really valuable in time. Similarly, the network of specialist centres will be of great value to those who use them when they are fully operational.

However, it is still impossible to avoid the feeling that the Government are stopping short, particularly on the areas of redress and independent oversight. On recommendation 3, rejecting a redress agency—something that is used in other countries—is short sighted. A redress agency would have consolidated the various schemes and methods available to families in one place and given them a model that suits them, rather than one that seems to suit the Government and companies more. I hope the Minister, having heard what she has heard today, will look again at that.

Similarly, recommendation 4, on redress schemes for each of the interventions, is of course a good idea and would make the process simple and transparent. Families are struggling and need help now. Six months ago, the Government said they were thinking about that. Well, a year is more than enough time, and I hope to hear news from the Minister on that.

Similarly, on recommendation 8, a year is more than enough time to have scoped out a workable model on a doctors’ register of interests. Colleagues made points about that very well. On recommendation 9, the Government were wrong to reject an independent taskforce, which would have given impetus and drive. Perhaps that is why we have not made the progress that we want. Again, the Minister could still revisit that.

I want to highlight some of the points that campaigners raised with me in my preparation for this debate. As we have heard, it is striking that across the UK, approximately 25,000 women are still using sodium valproate. There is good reason for that in very many cases, but taking the report on board, that means 400 exposed babies every year, 200 of whom will suffer harm. That is an awful lot. The volumes of research on the topic of valproate date back to the ’70s and the causal link is well proven, so it is surprising that better information has not been made available to patients. It was right that, last month, NHS England wrote to all women of childbearing age it believes to be on valproate. It is clear that that should have happened sooner. Goodness knows that campaigners such as INFACT have been saying that for long enough. I would like to hear from the Minister today a commitment that that was not a one-off and that it will be a regular, perhaps annual, communication, because it is crucial that we communicate with those mothers and potential mothers.

Communication across Government and the health service is crucial too. I am aware that there are eight groups dealing with this issue across Government and the Department. It is right that that important work is going on, but how is it being pulled together? Who is leading on it? How do we measure the impact? How do we know it works?

The Government continue to refuse to accept responsibility for HPT/Primodos families without a proven causal association, and continue to rely on the 2017 working group review, which said that there was no conclusive association, despite later admissions to the review team that they did find a possible association. Baroness Cumberlege stated that Primodos should have been withdrawn from use in 1967 after the first substantial report from Dr Gal was published. The response from the Government was that the IMMDS review did not revisit the existing science. However, although the team did not review the existing science, it reviewed all the existing documents, including the scientific evidence available at the time, which formed a solid base for its conclusions.

That is what I mean when I say that it feels like the Government are stopping just short of what needs to be done. Where is the proper justice for these families? Ten members of the campaign group have died since the report was published, still without their justice. That is why a proper redress scheme is crucial. I hope the Minister addresses that point.

On surgical mesh, the point has been made a couple of times, but it bears repeating, that the use of such an intervention for stress urinary incontinence was paused for good reason. The conditions for resuming use have clearly not been met at this time, but I know there is pressure to do so. I hope the Minister will confirm that that will not happen unless and until those conditions are fully met.

When we discussed this issue a year ago, there was righteous anger and a sense of purpose to put these injustices right. A year later, colleagues’ frustration that we have not made greater progress is tangible. We are in danger of letting down those affected all over again. Hearing the campaigners talk about resuming campaigning is saddening. They should not have to; they did everything they needed to do. For Marie, Janet, Emma, Kath, all those who campaigned across the country over the years, including those we have now lost, and all those affected, we know what needs to be done; we now need to get on with doing it in full.