Almost 1.7 million people have had hernia mesh surgery in the NHS since 2004, figures released by the NHS have revealed.

The statistics do not include people who’ve had hernia mesh in private hospitals.

Nobody can say how many are now suffering complications – because patients are not tracked for their lifetime.

Yet campaigners and academics globally say it can take many years for mesh to cause problems- so the scale of suffering falls into a black hole of missing data.

Moreover, support groups show that patients are being implanted with hernia mesh in their thousands ever year – but nobody is being given fully informed consent of the potential risks such as pain, loss of mobility, loss of sex life and losing the ability to have children. Also autoimmune diseases and allergies caused by the plastic mesh material.

The figures came to light thanks to a Written Parliamentary Question asked by MP Sharon Hodgson, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for First Do No Harm.

In its response, The Department of Health say: “Clinicians are expected to inform patients about risks associated with recommended treatments, including reasonable alternatives, to enable informed consent and a balanced patient decision.”

But here at Sling The Mesh we know the majority of people are told hernia mesh is ‘not the mesh in the media’, or it is a new mesh, or that this is a gold standard treatment and that mesh receives undeserved negative attention.

It is time for all patients to be properly warned of the risks vs the benefits and to be offered non mesh hernia repair alternatives, using traditional native tissue repairs and skilled over stitching known as Shouldice repairs.

---

Further Reading

Long term follow up – Follow-up of more than 15 years is needed to fully assess complications after mesh hernia repair. Especially longer periods are needed to detect mesh erosion into organs and complications in younger males. Presently, short observations and lack of reporting standard in the literature prohibit accurate assessment of complication risks.

Year	FCEs
2004/05	77,849
2005/06	79,748
2006/07	83,789
2007/08	89,063
2008/09	87,401
2009/10	85,519
2010/11	85,697
2011/12	90,593
2012/13	89,676
2013/14	95,608
2014/15	95,854
2015/16	92,147
2016/17	93,887
2017/18	89,016
2018/19	89,951
2019/20	81,780
2020/21	39,034
2021/22	70,884
2022/23	78,917
2023/24	83,045

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics, NHS England.