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 campaign group Sling The Mesh says that 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.
Source: Sling the Mesh, 25 March 2025
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