Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:36 pm on 9 July 2020.

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Photo of Alec Shelbrooke Alec Shelbrooke Conservative, Elmet and Rothwell 12:36, 9 July 2020

Today is a day of strongly mixed emotions—one of joy that we have such a comprehensive and thorough report recognising what many women and others have been through, and of course one of absolute sadness and anger that it ever had to come to this. I first raised the issue of sodium valproate in 2013 or 2104, and vaginal mesh in October 2017. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend Jeremy Hunt for putting the inquiry in place, and to my hon. Friend the Minister for the way that she has handled today’s statement.

The Government, as my hon. Friend said, are now going to take note of what happened. I would like two particular areas to be looked at. First, we need to make sure that the complaints commissioner is thoroughly independent of the healthcare sector, because we cannot again ask people to mark their own homework. Secondly, there is the issue of powers of redress and ex gratia payments. One of my constituents has had to borrow tens of thousands of pounds to correct her mesh implant through private surgery. This operation was done and recommended by the NHS. If we can speedily get these recommendations in place and compensate women who have had to take on their own financial burden to correct this surgery caused by the NHS, that would be most welcome.