Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support patients adversely impacted by pelvic mesh implants.

There are nine specialist mesh centres across England, ensuring that women in every region with complications due to mesh inserted for urinary incontinence and vaginal prolapse gets the right support. Each mesh centre is led by a multi-disciplinary team to ensure patients get access to the specialist care and treatment that they need, including pain management and psychological support.

The Medical Devices Outcomes Registry was established by NHS England in April 2024 to fulfil Recommendation 7 of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, also known as the Cumberlege Review. The Pelvic Organ Prolapse and Stress Urinary Incontinence registry will be launched in early 2025. This will ensure that appropriate clinical vigilance data is collected, surgical outliers can be identified, and that comparative performance and outcomes across the centres are routinely available. NHS England is extending the registry to be United Kingdom-wide, to improve the recording of patient outcomes and experience.

Furthermore, the Department has commissioned, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, a £1.56 million study to develop a patient reported outcome measure (PROM) for prolapse, incontinence, and mesh complication surgery. Longer term, the PROM will be integrated into the pelvic floor registry.