Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent progress has been made in establishing the South East Regional specialist centre for the treatment of women damaged by mesh implants; and whether checks will be carried out to ensure that such women, when seeking remedial treatment from that specialist centre, are not placed in the hands of surgeons who were responsible for (a) implanting the mesh originally, (b) denying that anything had gone wrong with the implants and (c) claiming that women reporting extreme physical pain from the implants were imagining it.

The specialist centre for the South East region based at Southampton NHS Foundation Trust is now accepting referrals and offering treatment to patients who have been adversely affected by mesh implants. The surgery to remove mesh implanted for stress urinary incontinence and vaginal prolapse is a relatively new surgical discipline. Expertise is therefore concentrated in a limited number of specialist centres, such as the South East centre, led by a core multi-disciplinary team including consultant specialists in urogynaecology, urology and colorectal surgery. Patients also have access to a team including pelvic floor specialist physiotherapy, psychology, psychosexual counselling, occupational therapy, specialist imaging and pain management services.

Patients can discuss their choice of surgeon with the multi-disciplinary team if they have concerns regarding a specific clinician and can also discuss a referral to a surgeon in another specialist mesh centre.