Financial Redress: A report about a report, following a report
Three years since Baroness Cumberlege published her damming First Do No Harm report and a new report will look into financial redress for women injured by pelvic mesh.
The latest project, announced this week by Patient Safety Commissioner Dr Henrietta Hughes, will involve talking to patient groups and individuals to ask women what they want.
The government will then make a decision on next steps.
While it is tiring to see a report, following a report after a report, it is a step forwards from when the government refused to offer financial redress, instead promising to toughen regulations and systems to improve patient safety.
Timeline
- First Do No Harm report calls for financial redress July 2020
- Government refuses to accept financial redress or set up a redress agency 2020/21
- A year talking to patient reps produces The Patient Reference Group report calling for financial redress July 2021
- The Patient Safety Commissioner announces a focused financial redress report July 2023
The government’s “put up and shut up” refusal to offer redress flew in the face of everything the Cumberlege First Do No Harm stood for. Namely, treating women with respect and hearing the voices of harmed patients.
Theresa May, who commissioned the review into mesh, Primodos and Sodium Valproate, slammed the government’s decision and in a Westminster debate in February 2022 said women have: “Suffered physically, mentally in many cases economically and socially.
“The longer it takes to fully implement the recommendations the more rejection these people are suffering. I commissioned the report … the aim was not just to get to the truth but to identify what needed to be done to address the problems, provide support, but also ensure this could not happen again.”
During the debate Theresa May highlighted glaring characteristics at the heart of the three women’s health scandals:
- The reaction of the NHS and medical establishment to defend itself rather than to admit mistakes
- Large sums of money spent by the NHS trying to defend itself in court cases when a better solution could be found instead
- A patronising attitude to women, ‘pat you on the head, there, there, you’re a woman’
- Not listening to women’s voices
- The need for a task force to grip the First Do No Harm issues and press the accelerator on action
The cost of being ill. What do women want?
As campaigners we know that women need financial support NOW.
Women have lost jobs, marriages, pensions. Their lives have been shattered in many different ways, which impacts their physical, mental and financial wellbeing.
Among the financial burden are regular medication, walking aids, care support, trips to doctors and hospital appointments. Private counselling or support like physiotherapy, because the waiting list for NHS services is impossible to navigate.
Some women choose private mesh removal as they cannot mentally cope with waiting lists of up to four years.
Chores women could perform, they must now pay for eg gardening. Some have had to sell or re-mortgage homes. Some have elderly parents caring for them.
Due to pelvic pain some can no longer drive their manual cars so must switch to automatic. Some need stairlifts, many have ongoing autoimmune diseases.
It is costly to be chronically ill.
What is the latest report by the Patient Safety Commissioner?
The Minister for Mental Health and Women’s Health Strategy, Maria Caulfield MP, asked the Patient Safety Commissioner to explore redress options. The project team for this work is now in place and work has begun.
Once the project is complete, it will be a decision for Government to consider the report and set out next steps.
- Sling The Mesh is part of this work and will be advocating for a meaningful package of financial redress to support women whose health has been impacted for life.
- The Patient Safety Commissioner is due to launch an online survey and, once live, we will be urging as many of our members as possible to complete it.
- The Commissioner is working alongside a small, internal, project team. Dr Sonia Macleod, Lead Researcher for the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, IMMDSR has been appointed as an Expert Advisor for the work.
- Read more here
