Scottish health secretary requests mesh implant suspension

Scottish health secretary, Alex Neil, has asked the acting chief medical officer (CMO) to write to all health boards to ask them to consider the suspension of polypropylene mesh medical devices.

It has been reported by the BBC that some of the women who received the procedure, which is used to ease incontinence, have suffered painful and debilitating complications.

Mr Neil told MSPs he was "deeply troubled" by the issue and announced that a Scottish-based independent review would be set up to report on the procedure, reporting early in the new year. This has been welcomed by campaigners.

Several of Scotland’s 14 regional health boards said they would agree to the health secretary’s request, while others explained that they had not used the procedure in some time.

Neil said: “I can confirm that in the last year the CMO has written three times to all GPs, through medical directors, alerting them to the possibility that women may suffer complications following insertion of these mesh implants, and that all adverse events should be reported to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

“In addition today I have asked for an independent review to be set up urgently to report on the issues raised such as complication rates and under reporting. This review will report at the beginning of 2015 taking account of the European Commission’s study on these devices.

“I do not have authority to withdraw these products but I have asked the CMO to write to all health boards to consider the suspension of these services until further evidence becomes available early next year.

“Where individual women and their clinicians agree on the need for a particular service, this will still be available.”

A MHRA spokesman told the BBC that its research showed that while a small number of women had experienced distressing effects, the benefits of these tapes and meshes outweighed the risks and could help in dealing with upsetting conditions such as urinary stress incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse.