Health and Social Care Select Committee: Follow-up on the IMMDS report and the Government’s response (20 January 2023)

Summary

This Health and Social Care Select Committee report reviews the progress that the UK Government has made in implementing the recommendations of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, sometimes referred to as the Cumberlege Review.

You can read Patient Safety Learning’s reflections on this report here.

Content

This report follows on from an evidence session held by the Select Committee on the 13 December 2022 to assess the Government’s progress against recommendations made in the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety (IMMDS) report, First Do No Harm. This featured contributions from the Government Minister Maria Caulfield MP, patients and patient groups, and representatives from NHS England and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Summary of the reports recommendations

The Government should:

• Urgently ensure that the accepted recommendations 6 and 7 of the IMMDS review are fully implemented.
• Consider an alternative strategy for how to pro-actively contact pelvic mesh patients who have had the procedure about their post-operative experiences and possible side effects.
• Make the arrangements necessary to ensure the register of clinicians’ interests can be set up swiftly, subject to the pilot phase concluding, to prevent further delay.
• Move at pace to bring in the necessary secondary legislation to set this up a register of industry payments to clinicians.
• Ensure that the Patient Safety Commissioner for England’s ability to carry out her important role, as her duties and responsibilities is more clearly defined, is not impeded by a lack of resource for and within her office.

The Department of Health and Social Care should:

• Respond to concerns raised about interactions and consultations with stakeholders around care schemes stemming from the review, reflecting on this experience and considering how to improve engagement with them in the future.

The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care should:

• Make a statement detailing the Patient Safety Commissioner’s review of redress schemes for the medical interventions dealt with by the IMMDS review, and what additional resources will be made available to her to undertake it.

The Minister for Mental Health and Women’s Strategy should:

• Make a statement on the review of redress and a possible Redress Agency, with more details on what such a review would include and seek to achieve, and timeline for completion.