Contribution
It is an honour to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) on securing this important debate and highlighting the trauma caused to many women, such as his constituent Debbie, by the pelvic mesh scandal.
Before entering Parliament I spent 20 years in the health and care sector, including at the Department of Health and Social Care as a senior civil servant. Patient safety and quality were part of my responsibilities. I was involved with some of the inquiries into tragedies of maternal and infant deaths, such as at Morecambe Bay; with the Government response to the Francis inquiry into the tragic deaths at Stafford hospital; and with subsequent reviews by Sir Bruce Keogh. That is more than a decade ago.
As my hon. Friend was saying, the NHS is fantastic at its best; it is there to heal and cure. But it is a tragedy that there continue to be patients who suffer harm as a result of medical care and treatment. The pelvic mesh scandal, I am afraid, follows a long line of other scandals—not least the infected blood scandal. I am obviously pleased that the Government have recognised the harm caused by that scandal and are committed to a full and fair compensation scheme. Obviously, here we are seeking redress for the women who have been harmed. It is important that we learn from the past as well as prevent scandals such as this from happening again in future.
As has been the case with many other Members, a constituent approached me about this issue. I am pleased with the male allyship on show today. The voices of women are often not heard; there are power issues when it comes to surgeons, who are often male. This follows other scandals involving unnecessary hysterectomies, for example. We need to remember some of the horrific consequences for women such as Julie, who lives in Baildon in my constituency. Her story is similar to some of those that have already been shared. The details are pretty harrowing. Her life has been torn apart as a result of both the mental and physical consequences. I will not go into the details of her case, which are similar to those already mentioned. We must look for redress for the unnecessary suffering and seek to put the issue right.
Like other Members, I pay tribute to Baroness Cumberlege for her work on the review. I have admired her from afar for a long time; in the 1990s, she was Health Minister when I was early in my health career and she did fantastic work on maternity services in 2015. That resulted in recommendations and the setting-up of networks; we have seen progress on that as well as care and advice, and obviously I welcome that. For women who had mesh inserted, particularly for urinary incontinence and vaginal prolapse, it is vital that such services are accessible in every region, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow said.
More needs to be done. In particular, under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 the statute of limitation for faulty medical devices is just 10 years. That is obviously too short a timeframe for pelvic mesh, because it can easily take longer than 10 years for the most serious negative effects to come to light. I have written to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, seeking an amendment to that Act to increase the statute of limitation to 20 years for faulty medical devices and products. I am pleased to say that a review is under way. Will the Minister follow up on that and ensure that the representations made are followed through on behalf of people affected in the future and seek justice?
Drawing on my professional background, I want to address the points made about the products. There are significant clinical trials for drugs and pharmaceuticals, but we do not gather sufficient evidence before products such as mesh go into widespread use. I again urge the Minister and others, including the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and the National Institute for Health and Care Research, to ensure that all devices and products—particularly implants—go through a proper clinical trial process before they are licensed. That relates to the point about device licensing. Drug licensing is very strict and takes place over many years, but do we have sufficient device regulation for these sorts of implants?
On professional regulation, we obviously give the surgeons the benefit of the doubt and hope that they were using best practice at the time, but we have to recognise that in some cases surgeons and doctors do not operate in the best interests of the patient, and that full informed consent may not be given. We have seen examples of that, even after the problems with pelvic mesh came to light. I urge the Government to look at whether the professional regulation is strong enough.
Since my early work in this area, I have maintained an interest in patient safety. As the newly elected vice-chair for the all-party parliamentary group on patient safety, I look forward to continuing to work with the chair, the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Jeremy Hunt); I worked with him when he was Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Hopefully, we will work with other Members across the House to improve safety in the NHS and address the pelvic mesh scandal and other issues. I hope that no one suffers in the way that women such as Debbie and my constituent Julie have in the past. We must protect patients for the future.