Mesh implants: Women launch claims against NHS trusts and surgeons for failing to warn of risks

Hundreds of women in England and Wales who suffered permanent injury after pelvic mesh implant surgery are to launch claims against NHS trusts and surgeons who operated at private hospitals for failing to inform them of the risks.

Product liability claims are also going ahead against Johnson and Johnson and other manufacturers, alleging that their pelvic mesh products were defective. Around 40 clients of Thompsons, a leading law firm involved in the mesh litigation, are mounting product liability cases.

The move follows a settlement by Johnson and Johnson last month of tens of millions of pounds for hundreds of women in Scotland who claimed they suffered serious injuries from implants made by Johnson and Johnson subsidiary Ethicon. The total sum, which has been kept confidential, has been reported to be £50m (€55m; $62m), although Johnson and Johnson told The BMJ it was significantly less.1

Thompsons is acting for around 200 women who are expected to make negligence claims against the NHS and doctors who operated privately. The firm is also handling 105 claims against the surgeon Tony Dixon, a pioneer in the use of laparoscopic ventral mesh rectopexy (LVMR), who worked at Southmead Hospital and the private Spire Hospital in Bristol.

North Bristol NHS Trust has told 57 men and women who had the procedure at Southmead that they should have been offered alternative treatment first. Dixon has interim conditions on his registration barring him from carrying out LVMR and two other procedures.2 His former NHS patients are expected to be compensated through an alternative dispute resolution process.

Thompsons said the women the firm represented were suffering lifelong injuries and psychological trauma as a result of complications from the surgery, which was intended to treat incontinence and prolapse. Common symptoms suffered include “severe and persistent pain in the abdominal and pelvic areas, legs, and feet, as well as bowel and nerve trauma, sexual dysfunction, bleeding, incontinence, and difficulty or inability to walk.”

Linda Millband, national clinical negligence lead at Thompsons, said, “These women have suffered unimaginable pain from mesh, physically and emotionally. None of them had any idea about the risks involved and many weren’t even told that mesh was being used.

“Incorrectly inserted mesh implants is one of the biggest UK health scandals since thalidomide. Mesh promised a wonder solution to women’s health concerns, but they had little to no understanding of what they were agreeing to when they said yes to surgical intervention.”

Last November more than 1350 women in Australia won a class action against Johnson and Johnson over the harm they suffered from transvaginal mesh and tape devices.3 The previous month, Johnson and Johnson agreed to pay nearly $117m to settle claims brought by the attorneys general of 41 US states and the District of Columbia that it deceptively marketed and advertised the products.

The Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, set up by the UK government and chaired by the peer Julia Cumberlege, is to publish its conclusions on surgical mesh on 8 July.