Health: Pelvic Mesh Implants

Baroness Jolly Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

My noble friend makes an excellent point. This is one procedure, and for some women it can be positive and life-enhancing. But we also know that it carries a risk of complications. That is one reason why we wanted to carry out the audit, because it will look not only at areas and procedures where there have been problems and complications but at where it has been successful, so that we can have a proper understanding of what the complication rate is and therefore what the safety concerns are.

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, the NICE guidelines that the Minister just referred to conclude that:

“Evidence of long-term efficacy is inadequate in quality and quantity. Therefore, this procedure should only be used in the context of research”,


as he said. But will he tell the House how confident we can now be that that is the case and that the information has been effectively disseminated? What is the mechanism for informing clinicians and women about this NICE guidance?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness is quite right to say that it is not just about having the guidelines but making sure that clinicians follow them. Professional standards demand that clinicians do follow them, and indeed a clinician would need to be strongly justified in using mesh implants outside of the guidelines. They include things like gaining consent, providing information and registering operations that have been carried out. The guidelines are very strict and we expect clinicians to follow them.