The Cumberlege Report

In Parliament yesterday, the Minister for Patient Safety, Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, Nadine Dorris, made a statement regarding the independent medicines and medical devices review (Cumberlege report).

This review was announced in February 2018, in response to public concern about the safety of medicines and medical devices used by the NHS. It focused on three areas.

The first is Primodos, a hormone-based pregnancy test that is claimed to have led to miscarriages and birth defects during the 1960s and ’70s. The second is sodium valproate, an anti-epilepsy drug that has been definitively linked to autism and learning disabilities in children when taken during pregnancy. The third is the vaginal mesh implants used in the treatment of pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence, which have been linked to crippling, life-changing side-effects.

Baroness Cumberlege was asked to conduct a review into what happened in each of those three cases. She was also asked to make some recommendations for the future.

I am pleased to see that the full report has now been published and  every page makes clear the pain and suffering that has been felt by so many patients and their families. As Baroness Cumberlege herself said, they suffered “avoidable harm”.

The Minister made an apology to those women, their children and their families for the time the system took to listen and respond. The Government have now received the report’s findings and are now taking time to absorb its contents before they respond.

I would like to thank Baroness Cumberlege, who has carried out her work with thoroughness and compassion. She has worked tirelessly to ensure that patients and their families have been heard.  Most of all I would like to pay tribute to my constituents who have been affected by these issues, and I hope that some good can now come of this review.