Breast Implants

Stephen Dorrell Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

It may be called devolution. I respect the devolved Administrations and always inform them of what I am doing, where it is relevant to them. We do not recognise the advice that Wales received. Sir Bruce Keogh’s expert group, which included some of the foremost experts in plastic surgery, made clear recommendations last week for patients in England and concluded that there was no significant increased clinical risk in cases where implants are not replaced.

If the shadow Secretary of State commends what the Welsh Government have done—[Interruption.] Perhaps he did not, but if he or anyone were to commend it, they would need to recognise that it runs the risk of letting the private providers off the hook. I am very clear that they should provide an equivalent standard of care. As the right hon. Gentleman made clear, there are limitations on what can be done. I do not have powers and I did not inherit powers to control what the private providers do in the private sector. I have to tell the right hon. Gentleman, however, that I have reflected on the Health and Social Care Bill, which is a positive legislative step forward. Just as it allows Monitor as a health and social care sector regulator, on which we are consulting, to look at the prudential regulation of private providers in social care, so it would allow us to consider the role of Monitor as a health sector regulator in licensing private providers of private health care. It is thus a positive not a negative step forward. There is no comparison, as the right hon. Gentleman will recognise, between the role of the private sector providing private care and the private sector in the NHS, which is subject to the same duties and obligations as an NHS provider. The Bill does not lead to an increase in private sector provision, but in so far as there are private sector providers, they will be properly regulated in the NHS.

On the role of private providers, they may be insured and there may be warranties relating to these implants. We do not have data on this aspect, but I am clear that these providers have legal and, indeed, moral obligations. I particularly commend a letter issued this morning by the leaders of the profession—the two principal professional associations—to their surgical colleagues. Having talked about the standard of care in the NHS, the letter went on to say:

“Those working in the private sector are urged to support in similar fashion. We would hope that implanting surgeons would honour requests for replacement surgery free of surgical charge”.

The private providers that have not made this offer to the women for whom they are responsible can see that their surgical associates are willing to carry this out free of surgical charge, so I see no reason why they should not now step up and deliver the standard of care that women have a right to expect.

[Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)]

May I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and the prompt action he has taken over the last few weeks to address this issue? Does he agree that the first priority when these concerns came to light was to ensure that the women who have had these implants had clear, authoritative advice based on the evidence of the right way to treat them, and that the process he established under Sir Bruce Keogh has provided and will continue to provide exactly that authoritative evidence-based advice? Does he further agree that there are some longer-term policy issues around the regulation of this industry that need to be addressed, but in a more considered way and not tied up in the emotions of this immediate concern?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and agree with all his points. I would add that when the French Government informed us of their prospective announcement—I spoke to the French Health Minister the day before it—we gave the best advice to date, based on the MHRA’s knowledge of the toxicology tests and its discussions with the French regulator. What we have to do is to establish the extent to which surveillance of these implants over a number of years should have led to any different conclusion. It remains true, however, that there is no evidence of long-term health effects that would give rise—and would have given rise at that time—to a different recommendation from the one that we made.