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Sling The Mesh in the news: 2026
Added on 9 February 2026 News

Sling The Mesh in the news: 2026

News headlines, features and discussion about Sling The Mesh in 2026.

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Sling The Mesh in the news: 2025
Added on 7 February 2025 News

Sling The Mesh in the news: 2025

News headlines, features and discussion about Sling The Mesh in 2025.

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Sling The Mesh in the news: 2024
Added on 9 February 2024 News

Sling The Mesh in the news: 2024

News headlines, features and discussion about Sling The Mesh in 2024.

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2023
Added on 18 August 2023 News

Sling The Mesh in the news: 2023

News headlines, features and discussion about Sling The Mesh in 2023.

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2022
Added on 11 December 2022 News

Sling The Mesh in the news: 2022

News headlines, features and discussion about Sling The Mesh in 2022. Includes award for Kath Sansom and health secretary pledge to look into financial redress.

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2021
Added on 11 December 2021 News

Sling The Mesh in the news: 2021

News headlines, features and discussion about Sling The Mesh in 2021. Includes the topic of mesh removal featuring in an episode of BBC Casualty.

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2020
Added on 11 December 2020 News

Sling The Mesh in the news: 2020

News headlines, features and discussion about Sling The Mesh in 2020. Includes publication of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review.

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2019
Added on 11 December 2019 News

Sling The Mesh in the news: 2019

News headlines, features and discussion about Sling The Mesh in 2019. Includes NICE guidelines update and Bard’s voluntary product withdrawal.

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2018
Added on 11 December 2018 News

Sling The Mesh in the news: 2018

News headlines, features and discussion about Sling The Mesh in 2018. Includes release of the Implant Files and the BMJ exposing the tragedy of mesh implants.

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2017
Added on 11 December 2017 News

Sling The Mesh in the news: 2017

News headlines, features and discussion about Sling The Mesh in 2017. Includes the BBC Panorama investigation and campaigners’ visit to Parliament.

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Posts pagination

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Tweets by MeshCampaign

slingthemesh

Mesh implants are used in operations to treat incontinence, prolapse, hernia, rectopexy and some mastectomy repairs after breast cancer.

🌏❤️💙 How do we strengthen global campaigning when 🌏❤️💙 How do we strengthen global campaigning when the same harm is happening across continents?

It was great to meet New Zealand #mesh activist Charlotte Korte today and talk about how we align, connect and grow our impact together 🤝

Nearly 11,400 miles apart … but the experiences of women in the UK and New Zealand are IDENTICAL.

➡️Same harm
➡️Same institutional denial
➡️Same lack of data 
➡️Same resistance from parts of the pro‑mesh surgical community

And the same reality of a chronic lack of funding for patient advocacy which leaves us campaigning pro bono alongside juggling work. jobs, families and life.

We were never “mystery patients”. We are a movement of thousands. And we will not be ignored.

#slingthemesh #mesh #patientsafety
💙❤️ Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer spoke about th 💙❤️ Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer spoke about the need to give an answer on compensation for women harmed by #pelvicmesh 

However, the reply came after being asked about compensation for sodium valproate families.

While it is of course positive news that he recognises our community, he should’ve also spoken about the Valproate families, seeing as that was the question from MP Sarah Green.

The government needs to recognise that BOTH communities – Mesh and Valproate – urgently need financial redress for being avoidably harmed for a treatment we were all assured was safe. 

#patientsafety #mesh #keirstarmer #firstdonoharm
💙❤️ Today marks 11 years of #SlingTheMesh. It's be 💙❤️ Today marks 11 years of #SlingTheMesh. It's been relentless hours of hard work, lobbying politicians, securing national and international media coverage, contributing to major reviews, pushing for better regulation, registries and guidelines. Also tears. A lot of them, especially for mesh friends we have lost.

💙❤️ We grew into a #patientsafety movement because we had to. And because we don't want our children and grandchildren to be harmed like we were with no accountability.

💙❤️ We are determined that the experience of the #mesh injured community continues to shape conversations at the highest levels, bringing the reality of avoidable harm into rooms where decisions are made.

📢 Sadly we are still not always welcome in such rooms but we continue to push to have our voices represented. To harm then ignore is cruel, unneccessary and totally unacceptable in modern medicine.

💙❤️We are proud to have played our part in helping drive long-overdue change in how #mesh and #medicaldevices are understood, regulated and monitored.

💙❤️But overwhelmingly, the thing that matters most is creating a platform where people know they are not alone, they are not going mad, and they are believed. A place where people can connect with others for advice, support, knowledge and friendship.

💙❤️Sadly, without patient forums like Sling The Mesh and our sister group Sling The Mesh Northern Ireland, the brick wall of institutional denial globally remains firmly in place and is an unacceptable nightmare for people to deal with alone.

💙❤️ Thank you to every single person who has been here along the way - especially the admin team who make it all possible.

📢❤️💙Also thank you to every single person who has had to decipher my typo-filled messages and emails at all hours of day and night and has given support in so many ways, too many to mention. Thank you xx
💰💵Hidden industry funding has been shown to influe 💰💵Hidden industry funding has been shown to influence health research as the money can lead to benefits being overstated and risks being downplayed.

⚠️This is a massive patient safety issue. Scientific literature which shapes our healthcare treatments should be trustworthy but instead the secret millions given every year from industry giants to the health sector can lead to research which doesn't tell the full truth.

📢 Industry funding has real-world consequences. It definitely played a role in the mesh scandal where women were harmed while risks were minimised and concerns dismissed.

➡️It has been proved that undisclosed conflicts of interest can distort evidence and undermine trust. So why is there not a public open database out there which patients, media politicians and regulators can use to search up who is paying the voices of our doctors, researchers, health charities, surgeon societies, teaching hospitals and social media influencers?

☀️Transparency must not be optional - it’s essential.

☀️We urgently need the government to introduce Sunshine legislation to give us strong, workable policies to ensure full transparency around industry funding - especially influence in research.

🔖 Because when the evidence is compromised, people pay the price.

#patientsafety #sllingthemesh #mesh #departmentofhealth #conflictofinterest #coi #ebm #whofundsyourdoctor
Six years since the First Do No Harm Report. More Six years since the First Do No Harm Report.

More than two years since the Hughes Report.

Both called for timely compensation for women harmed by pelvic mesh.

And still we are waiting.

#slingthmesh #mesh #patientsafety
➡️📢 In collaboration with Sling the Mesh UK, resea ➡️📢 In collaboration with Sling the Mesh UK, researchers from RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences are conducting a survey of people with pelvic mesh complications. 

🗣️We are posting to ask members if you want to participate. 

🔖Participation involves an online survey that will take approximately 30 minutes. 

It can be completed on your smart-phone, laptop or tablet, whichever suits you best. You can begin and then go back to it if you need to take a break.

You are eligible to participate if you were implanted with any type of pelvic mesh in a UK healthcare facility after 1 January 1998 and have experienced any pelvic mesh related health complication. 

You must also be aged 18 years or over to participate.

➡️➡️If you think you are eligible, and you are interested in participating then please click the Linktree link in our bio. Alternatively email slingthemesh@gmail.com and we will email it to you. 

#slingthemesh #ebm #evidence #patientsafety
📢➡️This study shouts from the roof tops. We are no 📢➡️This study shouts from the roof tops. We are not making our symptoms up.

📊 New research from the team at Newcastle Mesh Complications Centre shows surgical mesh can cause a whole body systemic inflammatory response.

Their evidence shows ongoing, abnormal immune activation throughout the body, not just at the implant site.

Most research on mesh complications looks at local problems such as damage or inflammation where the mesh is placed. However, this paper asks a bigger question. Do these patients also have a whole‑body (systemic) immune response, not just a local one? 

The answer appears to be YES.

The research team say the mechanisms underpinning mesh complications remain largely unknown - and there are no reports characterising systemic immune dysregulation - in other words, the immune system not working as it should.

Their new study looked at patients who were having bladder mesh slings removed. They analysed immune-related proteins in their blood by testing how immune cells behaved when exposed to mesh material.

They found that - patients with mesh complications had higher levels of certain immune/chemical signals and their immune cells also produced inflammatory molecules. 

➡️➡️Conclusion. People with mesh complications may have a distinct altered immune system response.

🔖To read the full story and a link to the new study head to the blog section of our website.

#slingthemesh #autoimmunedisease #systemicillness #inflammation #mesh
Nobody warned us of the risks #mesh #slingthemesh Nobody warned us of the risks #mesh

#slingthemesh #patientsafety #informedconsent
A huge thanks to MP Tessa Munt for urging the gove A huge thanks to MP Tessa Munt for urging the government to commit to compensation as outlined in the Hughes Report. 

#slingthemesh #mesh #patientsafety
🚨COMPENSATION. We need your voice. Please take a c 🚨COMPENSATION. We need your voice. Please take a couple of minutes to email your MP.

🚨An Early Day Motion has been tabled in Parliament calling for justice and financial redress for those harmed by surgical mesh, Sodium Valproate and Primodos.

👉 It needs MPs to sign. Please contact your MP today and ask them to sign EDM 65765

We’ve made it easy just copy and send this template 👇

Dear (MPs Name)

I am writing to you as your constituent to ask you to sign EDM 65765 which is calling on the Government to establish financial redress schemes for victims of surgical mesh, sodium valproate, and Primodos.

✅Add a line here telling your MP how you have been impacted.

The Early Day Motion calls on the Government to:

Formally respond to the 2024 Hughes Report, published by Patient Safety Commissioner Dr Henrietta Hughes, which recommended an independent financial redress scheme for those harmed by surgical mesh and sodium valproate

Recognise that Primodos victims have been excluded from that process entirely, despite the case for their redress having been established in the 2020 Cumberlege Review.

Bring this scandal into parity with the infected blood scandal, where the Government established a compensation scheme following the Infected Blood Inquiry.

Reject the suggestion that victims should pursue legal routes to compensation, which is adversarial, expensive and has repeatedly failed those affected.

Those affected are asking for the same recognition that has been given to other victims of state or NHS failures.

Many impacted are elderly, seriously ill, caring for their seriously ill child, or have died before receiving justice.

This delay is unacceptable, so will you, as my MP, call the Government to take action and provide justice.

Yours sincerely,

#patientsafety #sllingthemesh #firstdonoharm #cumberlegereview #medicalmisogyny
➡️How cheap plastic mesh remains a cash cow. In ou ➡️How cheap plastic mesh remains a cash cow. In our latest blog we look at how surgical mesh is a multi million industry for one simple reason: it is cheap to manufacture and easy to sell. 

From prolapse and bladder leaks to hernia repair, breast reconstruction, bowel surgery and even veterinary use, the same plastic products are repackaged and marketed across multiple conditions. 

Each relies on short‑term trials that measure early surgical success while failing to capture the full spectrum of complications – which can take up to 20 years to emerge and are rarely logged or followed up in official data.

Head to our website blog section to read the full story.

#slingthemesh #mesh #patientsafety #womenshealth #menshealth
📢 GET INVOLVED IN A GOVERNMENT PIP REVIEW Our #Sli 📢 GET INVOLVED IN A GOVERNMENT PIP REVIEW Our #SlingTheMesh community are too often denied Personal Independence Payment (PIP) despite living with chronic pain, reduced mobility, and being forced to give up or significantly reduce their working hours.

💹We are now encouraging members to engage with the Government's Timms Review, which is examining how #PIP is assessed and awarded.

➡️ The #DWP should already be aware of the impact of surgical mesh complications through the work of our admin team with them on the Mesh Condition Insight Report.

😱 Yet it remains deeply concerning that assessors frequently appear unfamiliar with that report and with the life‑changing injuries mesh can cause.

When decision‑makers lack understanding of complex medical harm, claimants pay the price by being refused PIP.

Lived experience matters. Assessments must be informed, fair, and grounded in a proper understanding of long‑term, complex health conditions.

🔗 Please Take part in the #TimmsReview by searching for the survey link on the Gov.UK website.
🗣️ WE NEED YOUR STORIES FOR HISTORICAL EVIDENCE ON 🗣️ WE NEED YOUR STORIES FOR HISTORICAL EVIDENCE ON OUR WEBSITE. See details below.

Sling The Mesh started in 2015 with 20 women raising concerns that were not being listened to. 

🌍 Today, it is a community of over 12,600 people worldwide both women and men harmed by different types of surgical mesh.

⚠️Our website and social media channels share information about all mesh types used to treat:
Prolapse
Bladder leaks
Hernia repair
Breast cancer reconstruction
Cosmetic breast surgery
Shoulder tear repairs
Bowel issues

🏥❌Harm is not limited to one procedure, one country, or one gender. What links thousands of people is the lack of informed consent, dismissal of complications, and systems that failed to respond.

📊 Each new voice of shared experience strengthens the evidence that harm has been widespread, under‑reported, and ongoing.

📩 It is vital these stories are not lost to history. If you have been affected by surgical mesh, please send your story to:
meshstories@yahoo.com

They will be shared on our website "Our Stories" page either with your name and photo or anonymously. Thank you 

#slingthemesh #mesh #hernia #sui #rectopexy #medicaldevices
A disgraced surgeon whose artificial bowel mesh pr A disgraced surgeon whose artificial bowel mesh procedures injured more than 450 patients has cost the NHS more £20m in compensation payments.

Bristol surgeon Tony Dixon was removed from the medical register last year for serious misconduct, including performing unnecessary surgeries, using surgical mesh to treat bowl complaints without patient's informed consent, and fabricating patient records.

NHS Resolution confirmed it has paid out £19.12m so far to 245 claimants - and there are hundreds more unsettled claims to be dealt with.

Dixon, who pioneered the LVMR (laparoscopic ventral mesh rectopexy) procedure, has declined to comment.

Check out the blog section of our website to read the full story.

#rectopexy #mesh #anthonydixon #tonydixon #bristolsurgeon
👏 We're relieved that #medicalmisogyny is now reco 👏 We're relieved that #medicalmisogyny is now recognised by UK government as a problem that must be tackled urgently. That recognition is long overdue … BUT we have been talking about this for 11 years. This reel was made FIVE YEARS AGO! 

💬 For over a decade, women affected by the mesh scandal were treated as if we were simply “unlucky patients” instead of victims of a system‑wide failure in women’s healthcare.

💬 For years, I was told in media interviews not to use terms like medical misogyny, #gaslighting, #everydaysexism or the institutional belittling of women.

🛑 And if I did mention them, reporters would often rush to add a line suggesting we’d just had bad luck with “a few individual healthcare professionals” in the mesh story.

📻 This was still happening as recently as last year, during a BBC radio interview.

So to now see this framed finally as a systemic issue?
💥 It is deeply validating.
💥 It confirms what women have been saying all along.

⚖️ We were ignored. We were dismissed. But we were right.

The video is not an easy watch. It includes real testimony from mesh injured women - many of whom have lost their sex lives because #mesh surgery to treat prolapse or bladder leaks has made it too painful to try. Or the plastic mesh material is slicing through their vaginal walls and cuts their partners penis.

Had this happened to men this surgery would have stopped YEARS AGO.

#slingthemesh #mesh #womenshealth #sexualhealth #vaginalmesh #pelvicmesh @vickypattison
🌍 These are the faces of almost 400 members of our 🌍 These are the faces of almost 400 members of our Sling the Mesh community, drawn from a membership of more than 12,500 people worldwide.

Women and men harmed by surgical mesh used to treat prolapse, bladder leaks, hernias, and for reconstruction following breast cancer, as well as cosmetic breast surgery.

None of us fully informed of the risks of having a permanent surgical mesh medical device implanted.

The majority gaslit, belittled and made to feel as if their pain was inconsequential. 

These are not statistics or snapshots. 

They are real people whose lives have been profoundly affected.

This video was created several years ago, and since then some of those pictured are no longer with us 🥲

#slingthemesh #mesh #patientsafety #firstdonoharm #patientsbeforeprofits
💙❤️ We are really pleased to see that our pressure 💙❤️ We are really pleased to see that our pressure exerted yesterday, demanding proper recognition of the mesh‑injured community in the new Women’s Health Strategy, led to Health Minister Karin Smyth acknowledging how our pain was ignored, during her Parliamentary speech today.

➡️ That recognition did not happen by accident, it happened because we refused to let the mesh‑injured community be erased.

📢 During speeches Shadow Health Minister Dr Caroline Johnson says she finds it remarkable the government had the audacity to include pelvic mesh in the report when there has still not been a commitment to compensation despite the Hughes Report published two years ago.

📢 MP Oliver Ryan said: “I am quite ashamed to say that before being elected, I did not know enough about women’s health issues, and in particular the issues with pelvic and vaginal mesh - the wait for treatment and the struggle to be heard- and endometriosis; people with that condition face a wait for diagnosis and a struggle for recognition. These women feel ignored and abandoned by a health service that does not care enough about women’s health issues."

📢 MP Chris Vince said: "I was shocked by the number of women from my constituency of Harlow who came forward to tell me about their terrible experiences of being gaslit, ignored and disrespected, particularly when it came to endometriosis and the pelvic mesh scandal.”

📢➡️ In the new women's Health Strategy mesh centres are mentioned as Action 63 on page 61. 

And while it’s a real disappointment that this wasn’t included in the government's press release or wider media announcements yesterday ... at least in Parliament today we received the acknowledgment that our community deserves.

#slingthemesh #mesh #womenshealthstrategy #medicalmisogyny
💢📢🗯️Today the government launched its refreshed Wo 💢📢🗯️Today the government launched its refreshed Women's Health Strategy which talks of the need to call out medical misogyny, stamp out every day sexism and listen to women's voices in the health system ... and we are disappointed to see no mention of mesh injured women and mesh centres in the government's press announcements and website.

➡️ Just a mention in the Strategy buried as Action 63.

➡️ Yet it was the bravery of mesh injured women who told their stories and the work of the formidable Baroness Julia Cumberlege in her 2020 First Do No Harm report that made it acceptable to talk of medical misogyny, gaslighting and women's voices being ignored.

🗣️Our community is feeling like our experiences and journeys of unimaginable, avoidable harm are being pushed down the list with just a mention of mesh centres buried in the report.

#slingthemesh #mesh #medicalmisogyny #everydaysexism #gaslighting #hearhervoice #meshcentres #firstdonoharm
🌍✨ Our blog about flimsy science which pushes mesh 🌍✨ Our blog about flimsy science which pushes mesh as a gold standard safe treatment option is now available in 24 languages! ✨🌍

📊🔬Too many people assume that medical implants like mesh are backed by robust, reliable science.

❗📉But the reality is very different. Our blog breaks down how the mesh scientific literature is often flimsy, poorly designed, underpowered, and biased and how that weak evidence base helped fuel a global women’s health scandal 

🗣️🌎⚠️ By translating this blog into 24 languages , the aim is simple:

➡️ To help people everywhere understand what the science says

➡️ To challenge the myth that “published” always means “proven”

➡️ To make sure patients, clinicians, and advocates know how to question the evidence, not just trust it

Science should stand up to scrutiny.
Patients deserve better evidence.
Informed consent depends on it. 💛📚🔗 Link in bio
📖 Read & share: slingthemesh.co.uk blog section of our website

🌐🗺️The Languages:

Chinese mainland

Chinese traditional / Hong Kong and Taiwan

Danish

Dutch

English

French

German

Greek

Gurmukhi (India) and Shahmuki (Pakistan)

Hindi

Italian

Japanese

Lithuanian

Norweigan

Polish

Portugese

Romanian

Slovakian

Spanish

Swedish

Turkish

Thai

Welsh

#MeshAwareness #WomensHealth #BadScience #MedicalEvidence #PatientSafety #HealthJustice #ListenToPatients #GlobalHealth #EvidenceMatters #InformedConsent
🏥🥼Being mesh injured is devastating. Being disbeli 🏥🥼Being mesh injured is devastating. Being disbelieved makes it worse. Below is an account from a member of our support group on the impact of being dismisssed by Drs.

🔖As a mesh injured woman, one of the most damaging things I experienced when seeking full removal of the mesh was inappropriate comments made by medical professionals. 

One Consultant told me that I’d just lost my mojo! When in fact the mesh had been inserted incorrectly and completely restricted my vaginal passage. 

The pain was terrible and I developed fibromyalgia, nerve damage, a pronounced limp and depression after my surgery. 

Some of these inappropriate comments, I feel are a deliberate attempt to minimise the symptoms many women are experiencing. Implying we are taking up valuable resources of the NHS.

Too many women are being treated poorly and men too, simply because they’ve highlighted a problem with mesh. 

I suffered repeated UTI’s one of which affected my left kidney and resulted in an emergency admission to hospital and treatment for sepsis. I honestly thought I was going to die. 

I’m very triggered by reading some of the inappropriate comments made to people suffering debilitating pain. Do not let anyone minimise the pain and suffering you are experiencing. Do not let them off the hook. 

Getting mesh removal surgery is v difficult, I encountered many obstacles over the three year period I was waiting for help. 

I would urge those of you that are seeking removal to take someone with you to your appointments for moral and emotional support. 

This journey is not easy and the damage is compounded by insensitive, inappropriate remarks made by people who should know better. 

I’m not saying all medics are deliberately trying to minimise our pain, but there are people who do a lot of harm by saying totally inappropriate things. 

We are human beings who have been injured and we deserve better. Getting help with the physical issues is difficult. 

A lot of people suffer emotionally and psychologically when they’re struggling with chronic pain. Do not let anyone minimise what you’re dealing with.
🩺🏥A Norfolk man says a routine hernia operation ha 🩺🏥A Norfolk man says a routine hernia operation has left him in constant chronic pain, largely housebound and unable to work.

Andy Wells, 61, has lived with severe complications linked to #hernia #mesh for over three years after multiple failed surgeries. What was meant to restore his health instead triggered a devastating chain of events:

🛑 Ongoing pain
🏠 Housebound
💼 Unable to work
💷 Lost his home and life savings
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Missing out on time with his grandchildren

His wife was forced to give up her job to care for him full‑time.

Like the majority of people on #slingthemesh Andy was never fully warned of the risks and has struggled to access proper support, now seeking specialist treatment outside his local area.

⚠️ His story is part of a wider national concern about the long‑term safety of polypropylene hernia mesh and the ticking time bomb effect of life‑changing complications.

“No one should lose everything because of something that was meant to make them better,” Andy said.

📣 His story can be read on Eastern Daily Press online.

#PatientSafety #SurgicalMesh #InformedConsent #ChronicPain #HerniaRepair
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