Continued Petitions

I welcome everyone back to this meeting of the Public Petitions Committee. Technical problems mean that I am not showing up on the video, which is perhaps a bonus for everyone concerned. I will continue with the audio only, to facilitate the discussion instead of pausing it.

The first continued petition for consideration is PE1517, on polypropylene mesh medical devices, which has been lodged by Elaine Holmes and Olive McIlroy on behalf of the Scottish mesh survivors hear our voice campaign. The petition calls on the Scottish Government to suspend the use of polypropylene transvaginal mesh procedures; to initiate a public inquiry and/or comprehensive independent research to evaluate the safety of mesh devices using all evidence available, including evidence from around the world; to introduce mandatory reporting of all adverse incidents by health professionals; to set up a Scottish transvaginal mesh implant register, with a view to linking it up with national and international registers; to introduce a uniform approach of fully informed consent across Scotland’s health boards; and to write to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, asking it to reclassify TVM devices with heightened alert status to reflect on-going concerns worldwide.

The petition was last considered in September 2019, when the committee agreed to write to the Scottish Government and to Dr Veronikis, who is an obstetrician-gynaecologist based in Missouri, in the USA. The committee has received a submission from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport and two submissions from the petitioners, which are summarised in our papers.

Since our papers were circulated, the clerks have received a subsequent submission from the petitioners, a copy of which has been provided to members. In the submission, the petitioners express how little confidence they have in the surgeons in the national mesh removal service and say that mesh-injured women should be able to see the surgeon of their choice, including Dr Veronikis. Members may wish to note that the committee has invited Dr Veronikis to make a written submission on three separate occasions; however, a submission has not been provided.

As members will know, the First Minister, in her statement earlier this week on the Scottish Government’s programme for government, announced the establishment of a patient safety commissioner. That step has been taken in response to recommendations in the Cumberlege review, which, as our papers note, was commissioned as a result of concerns about a number of treatments, including mesh implants.

We have dealt with this petition over a significant period of time. I very much welcome the decision to establish a patient safety commissioner, but the important point will be how the issues are taken forward. On so many occasions, there has been some progress with the petition—for example, in the setting up of a review—but people have then been very disappointed with the outcome.

The petitioners continue to be concerned and frustrated at the lack of progress and the lack of confidence that they feel in the process regarding the implications of what was done to women, as well as at the lack of information. They have concerns that the issue may still be on-going and about whether they can get the surgery that they need from someone in whom they have confidence.

There are further actions that we can take with regard to the petition. I ask Tom Mason to speak first.

I think that there is a consensus that we want to hear from the Scottish Government. The question is, what is the most productive way in which we can do that? I have no hesitation in asking the cabinet secretary to come before the committee, but I think that, as Gail Ross said, it would be useful to get a report from the Government first about how the new commission will work, what other work is being done around it and what contact the Government has had with Dr Veronikis. I know that there is a great deal of unhappiness about the fact that that has not been progressed.

At some point, I think that we would want the cabinet secretary and the clinical director, or whoever might be appropriate, to come to the committee to answer the questions that Maurice Corry has raised.

On the point about Dr Veronikis, in a sense, he has no responsibility to respond to us although he has been engaged with the Scottish Government. It would be interesting to know where that work has got to, but we must recognise that he is a busy man who might not necessarily feel that he has a responsibility to deal with the issue, even though it is a huge one in Scotland and elsewhere.

A compromise position might be to write to the Scottish Government to get a detailed response from the cabinet secretary about what precisely the programme is and how it will be taken forward, to clarify what progress has been made in discussions with Dr Veronikis and to flag up that, at some point, we will want to hear from the cabinet secretary. If the Scottish Government has made progress and a patient safety commissioner is to be established, we would want to know the timescales for that. That would be a good news story for the Government to tell the committee and might give the petitioners some confidence.

We all recognise that we want to continue petition, and we want the Scottish Government to give us a detailed response to the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review report that includes a timescale for the establishment of a patient safety commissioner and what that post would look like. We also want the Government to tell us, as Gail Ross has said, how it will engage with the petitioners, who clearly remain, at best, cynical about what is happening, given their circumstances.

Are members content to seek that response, with a view to having the cabinet secretary appear before the committee at a later stage? As no one is indicating that they disagree with that suggestion, I will take that as assent.

As David Torrance said, we recognise that the Public Petitions Committee has engaged in this work over a long time and that there is global recognition that it is a health scandal.