Mesh implants are a quick fix, used by surgeons to strengthen weak tissue in operations to treat prolapse, female and male stress incontinence, hernias and some breast reconstructions following mastectomy. It is also used in some animal surgeries.

Surgical mesh is a permanent polypropylene plastic implant. It can harden, fragment, twist, to slice into nerves, tissue and organs like an internal knife. The plastic material can cause pain, infections, autoimmune diseases, UTIs, and trigger allergic reactions, including psoriasis, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, Lichen sclerosus, lupus, food allergies and intolerances.

We also have members struggling with complications from biomesh made of pig or cow’s skin.

Complications can begin immediately for some, while for others problems appear years later – like a ticking time bomb.

This makes it especially difficult to track the scale of harm.

Removing mesh implants is major, complex surgery and in some cases is impossible. Some patients improve, some are worse and others see no difference – as found in the Sling The Mesh Survey 2019.

Pelvic mesh was rushed to market using the flimsiest of evidence. It was used for almost a decade without a specific hospital implanting code so the data held by NHS vastly under estimates the thousands of women affected.

New products continue to be approved using a flawed medical device approval system known as Equivalence in Europe and the 510K system in the US. The approval system is so weak that an Oxford University professor was on the brink of getting supermarket orange netting approved as a vaginal mesh to prove the failings.

Long-term complications are not captured globally.

For good background reading this article by Jonathan Gornall describes how mesh became a four-letter word.

Key objectives

• Raising awareness of surgical mesh risk.
• Educating the public on scientific research flaws causing patient harm.
• Calling for tougher approval, regulations and oversight to improve patient safety.
• Databases to track long term harm of medical devices which can spot trends of harm.
• Campaigning for the implementation of all nine First Do No Harm key recommendations.
• Financial redress for women harmed by pelvic mesh.
• Lobbying for a UK Sunshine Payment Act to improve transparency in the health sector by forcing the pharmaceutical and medical device industry to declare money given to doctors, researchers, lobby groups, health charities, surgeon societies and teaching hospitals. This money can add bias to prescribing and affect research integrity. So far, we’ve succeeded in laying the foundations which would need detailed secondary legislation. The US system allows the public to search Drs and researchers on an open database.
• Lobbing government for mandatory reporting of adverse events to the MHRA Yellow Card. It is currently voluntary. Two thirds of mesh complications were not logged as a result.
• Lobbying government to #raisethelimit for Product Liability legal cases from the current 10 years to at least 20 years to tie in with the rest of Europe.

Get in touch: slingthemesh@gmail.com

Latest from Sling The Mesh

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  Campaigners demand action in a rally outside Parliament to mark World Patient Safety Day
  Campaigners affected by the medical scandals of pelvic mesh implants, Primodos, and sodium valproate gathered outside Parliament to mark Patient Safety month with a powerful protest demanding justice and reform. Joined by cross-party MPs from the First Do No Harm All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), the demonstrators called on the Government to fully implement all recommendations of the landmark Cumberlege Review. The protest today (Weds 10 September) […]
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  MHRA rectopexy mesh review
  Sling The Mesh engaged with the regulator the MHRA on the rectopexy mesh review and completed its survey in 2024. We look forward to joining its project to engage with patient and healthcare stakeholder groups to bring about greater awareness of the issues. Engagement is due to begin in spring 2026. Question:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and […]
• 
  Campaigners and politicians demand rectopexy mesh suspension after surgeon is struck off
  Patient safety campaigners and MPs are demanding an immediate suspension of rectopexy bowel mesh surgeries, amid growing concerns over the credibility of research that underpins the procedure. The call comes after disgraced surgeon Tony Dixon was struck off for dishonestly falsifying patient notes long after he was involved in the patient care as well as operating on patients without obtaining informed consent. […]
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  Surgeons are no longer trained in mesh-free hernia repairs
  NHS patients are being left in chronic pain and unable to work after having hernias repaired with mesh. Surgeons are no longer trained in mesh-free repairs and many do not know how to remove implants, doctors have warned. Below is a story which is in the iNews August 2025 and speaks to members of Sling The Mesh and also three […]
• 
  New pelvic mesh removal study reveals the hidden toll of women’s pain
  A new study from one of the UK’s largest mesh complication centres shows more than half of women suffering pelvic mesh pain do not show any signs that there is anything wrong with their implant. The study, which lays bare the scale and complexity of suffering caused by pelvic mesh implants, shows that over a five-year period (2018–2023), 785 women were treated […]
• 
  Disgraced surgeon used industry money to fund The Pelvic Floor Society
  A surgeon who used industry funding to set up The Pelvic Floor Society – and was key in promoting Rectopexy Mesh across the UK – was this week struck off the medical register by the GMC. Listen to this interview with BBC reporter Matthew Hill about Tony Dixon’s fall from grace. This funding reinforces our call for Sunshine Legislation in […]
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  1,000 women harmed, surgeons say 101, regulator says 4
  Data failed patient safety miserably in the mesh scandal – with huge black holes of missing or unreliable information. For example, a 2012 report produced by the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (RCOG) showed 1,000 women were re-admitted to hospital with complications within 30 days of bladder mesh sling surgery. This figure comes from NHS data known as Hospital […]
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  Global surgical mesh market hits $650 million
  The global surgical mesh industry is booming with a value of $650 million in 2024 – projected to surge past $950 million by 2030. Behind the billion-dollar glossy forecasts we’re extremely concerned over global expansion of mesh use with no long term outcome logging – leading to safety concerns for millions of unsuspecting patients. Driven by aggressive marketing, we fear traditional surgery […]
• 
  Hernia Mesh – what is the long-term safety?
  A new study published in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research has added further weight to the growing body of evidence questioning the long-term safety of synthetic hernia mesh implants. The research, titled Polypropylene hernia mesh: Evidence of inflammation, oxidative stress, and degradation in human explants reveals alarming findings about the biological response to polypropylene mesh in the human body. Researchers found that mesh […]
• 
  Flimsy science is a patient safety disaster
  Many studies into surgical mesh were flawed as they didn’t log pain or complications – they merely logged if the mesh had worked. Most studies only followed up patients for a few weeks or months, yet surgical mesh can act like a ticking time bomb and take years for complications to show. The continent patient with debilitating chronic pain developing […]
• 
  Our letter to the Irish health minister – keep the ban on bladder mesh slings
  Sling the Mesh campaign and MP Sharon Hodgson have written to Irish Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, urging her to uphold the current ban on bladder mesh slings. This comes in response to growing pressure from some Irish surgeons to reintroduce the controversial devices, despite overwhelming evidence of the life-altering harm they have caused to thousands of women. We believe […]
• 
  Mesh injured women ‘still fighting for justice’ five years on from review
  Women harmed by pelvicl mesh are “still fighting for justice”, campaigners have said on the fifth anniversary of a review into the scandal. Sling the Mesh, a campaign group representing women harmed by mesh, accused governments of “dragging their feet” on implementing all the recommendations set out in the report. The review examined how the health service responded to concerns […]