Surgical Mesh Implants

(asked on 21st May 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to extend the time allowed for cases of clinical negligence to be brought on behalf of women harmed by pelvic mesh; and what assessment they have made of the number of women so affected, and of their exposure to debilitating side-effects.


Answered by
Lord O'Shaughnessy Portrait
Lord O'Shaughnessy
This question was answered on 5th June 2018

There is currently no plan to extend the limit in medical negligence cases specifically for mesh-injured patients.

Under section 11 of the Limitation Act 1980 a patient is able to bring a claim for damages for clinical negligence against a trust or any other healthcare provider within three years from the date of injury. However, this can be longer if the patient is a child, when the three year period only begins on his/her eighteenth birthday; the patient has a mental disorder within the meaning of the Mental Health Act 1983 so as to be incapable of managing his/ her own affairs, when the three year period is suspended; or there was an interval before the patient realised or could reasonably have found out that he/she had suffered a significant injury possibly related to his/her treatment.

The ‘date of knowledge’ of an injury could be a number of years after the treatment. In recognition that there may be some cases where the prescribed period is inadequate, the Limitation Act 1980 also gives the court discretion to disapply the limitation period in respect of claims for personal injuries when it considers it just and equitable to do so.

NHS Digital’s Retrospective Review of Surgery for Urogynaecological Prolapse and Stress Urinary Incontinence using Tape or Mesh, found for mesh insertion procedures for urogynaecological prolapse, between 2008/09 to 2016/17, 27,016 patients had a reported mesh insertion procedure for urogynaecological prolapse. There were only three reported readmissions for a removal procedure within 30 days of the identified insertion procedure. For patients who had a removal procedure more than 30 days after their initial insertion, the highest rate of readmissions occurs in the reporting year following the insertion. Patients who had an insertion in 2008/09 had a removal rate of 3.9 patients per 1,000 in 2009/10, but for patients who had an insertion in 2015/16, their removal rate was lower at 1.8 patients per 1,000 in 2016/17. The rate fluctuates for patients who had an insertion in the intervening reporting years. A summary of the report is attached.

Reticulating Splines