Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review entitled First Do No Harm, published on 8 July 2020, if he will make an estimate of the number of people with stress urinary incontinence who have been treated with mesh (a) slings and (b) tapes in (i) July 2018 to July 2019, (ii) July 2019 to July 2020, (iii) July 2020 to July 2021 and (iv) July 2021 to 11 July 2022.

There are no plans to make a specific estimate. Routine summary information relating to procedures for the treatment of stress urinary incontinence is regularly published as part of NHS Digital’s Hospital Episode Statistics data. However, since 2021/22 NHS Digital and NHS England have confirmed with individual trusts that specific treatments are as described for the activity recorded and it has been identified that some trusts have mis-coded procedures in the data used to produce these statistics.

In line with recommendations from the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, NHS Digital has created a pelvic floor registry for mesh and non-mesh procedures. This will allow an accurate assessment of the number of people undergoing mesh sling and tape procedures in the future.

Since July 2018 there has been a restriction in practice and period of high vigilance for the use of surgical mesh and tape to treat stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse. This restriction was reviewed and extended in March 2019 and remains in place. Clinicians can still carry out these procedures with the informed consent of the patient if a multidisciplinary team agrees there is clinical urgency to carry out the procedure and there is no suitable alternative.