Vaginal Mesh Victim Urges Action on Redress Scheme

On a March morning in 2026, Susan McLarnon travels to Downing Street with a message she has been forced to repeat for years: she is in constant pain, and the government has still done nothing to compensate her [1]. McLarnon is one of tens of thousands of women across the United Kingdom — and hundreds of thousands worldwide — whose lives were upended by a medical device once marketed as a simple, routine fix for common post-childbirth conditions. The device was a small piece of synthetic polypropylene mesh, surgically implanted to treat stress urinary incontinence (SUI) and pelvic organ prolapse (POP). For many women, it became a source of devastating, lifelong harm.

Now, more than two years after England's Patient Safety Commissioner recommended a dedicated financial redress scheme, affected women are still waiting. No scheme has been established. No payments have been made. And for campaigners like McLarnon, patience has long since run out.

A 'Gold Standard' That Eroded

Vaginal mesh implants were introduced in the late 1990s and rapidly adopted across the developed world as the standard surgical intervention for SUI and POP — conditions affecting millions of women, particularly after childbirth [3]. The devices were promoted by manufacturers and widely adopted by surgeons as a minimally invasive, effective solution. By one estimate, more than 127,000 mesh implant procedures were carried out in England alone between 2008 and 2017 [2]. In Australia, an estimated 150,000 women received pelvic mesh implants over a twenty-year period [10]. In the United States, the devices were implanted in hundreds of thousands of women.

But for a significant minority, the mesh did not heal. It eroded. It hardened. It cut through tissue, perforated organs, and caused infections that spread through the body [3]. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported that roughly one in ten women experienced complications following pelvic mesh implantation [3]. A major study of 92,246 first-time mesh procedures in England between 2007 and 2015 found a complication rate of 9.8% within five years [11].

The complications were often catastrophic: chronic pain so severe it prevented walking or working; loss of sexual function; bladder and bowel dysfunction; and, in some cases, permanent disability [3]. Women described having their careers destroyed, their relationships broken, and their independence stripped away — all from a procedure they were told carried minimal risk.

One of the most damning findings of subsequent reviews was that many women had never been properly informed of the risks. They had not been counselled about alternative treatments. They had not been given the information necessary to provide meaningful informed consent [5].

The Road to Recognition: Cumberlege and Hughes

The scale of harm began to emerge publicly in the 2010s, driven in large part by the tenacity of affected women who organised, campaigned, and refused to be dismissed. In the UK, their advocacy led to a landmark government inquiry.

In 2018, the NHS suspended the use of vaginal mesh for SUI in England, following mounting evidence of harm [5]. The pause was later extended to cover POP procedures as well. That same year, Baroness Julia Cumberlege was appointed to lead the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, examining not only pelvic mesh but also sodium valproate (an epilepsy drug linked to birth defects) and Primodos (a hormone pregnancy test).

The Cumberlege Review's final report, "First Do No Harm," was published in July 2020 [8]. Its findings were devastating. The report concluded that the healthcare system had systematically failed patients, that regulators had been too slow to act, and that women's reports of pain and injury had been routinely dismissed. It made nine major recommendations, including the appointment of a Patient Safety Commissioner, the establishment of specialist treatment centres, and — critically — the creation of an independent redress scheme for those harmed.

The government accepted some recommendations, notably appointing Dr Henrietta Hughes as England's first Patient Safety Commissioner in 2022 [7]. But it rejected the call for a dedicated redress scheme, instead directing women to pursue claims through NHS Resolution — the body that handles clinical negligence cases.

That approach proved woefully inadequate. By April 2023, the NHS Resolution claims gateway had received just 16 claims — and none had resulted in compensation [12].

Source: House of Lords Library / NHS Digital

Data as of Mar 10, 2026CSV

Recognising the failure of existing mechanisms, the government asked Dr Hughes to examine options for redress. Her findings, published as "The Hughes Report" in February 2024, made the case unequivocally: there was a "clear case for redress" for thousands of women, and the current system was not delivering it [7].

The Hughes Report: A Blueprint Gathering Dust

The Hughes Report proposed a two-stage financial redress scheme [6]. The first stage — an interim scheme — would award each directly harmed woman a fixed sum of £20,000, with payments beginning in 2025. The second stage — a main scheme — would provide individualised financial support based on the severity of each woman's injuries and circumstances.

The report also recommended that the scheme should:

• Cover women harmed in both NHS and private sector procedures
• Operate through a straightforward, accessible, and non-adversarial process
• Adopt a "presumption of truth" when assessing eligibility
• Be administered by an independent body
• Provide signposting to free emotional support
• Include a government awareness campaign, with targeted outreach to disadvantaged and marginalised groups [6]

The recommendations were welcomed by campaigners. But a year passed without action. In May 2024, the government sent a preliminary letter to the Commissioner acknowledging her work — but made no commitments [7]. When Baroness Merron, the Parliamentary Under Secretary at the Department of Health, was pressed in the House of Lords in August 2024, she stated only that the government was "carefully considering the valuable work done by the Hughes Report and will respond in due course" [12].

By February 2025, ITV News reported that survivors of both the mesh and sodium valproate scandals were "still waiting for compensation year on since damning report," with campaigners accusing the government of ignoring them [4]. In December 2024, MPs debated pelvic mesh and the Cumberlege review in the House of Commons, calling for urgent financial redress — but again, no concrete timetable emerged [9].

As of March 2026, the government has still not formally responded to the Hughes Report's recommendations. No redress scheme has been established. No interim payments have been made. The £20,000 payments that were supposed to begin in 2025 remain theoretical.

The Global Picture: Billions in Settlements, But Justice Eludes Many

While the UK government has stalled on a state-backed redress scheme, the legal landscape internationally tells a different story — one measured in billions of dollars.

In the United States, the vaginal mesh scandal produced one of the largest mass tort litigations in history. More than 100,000 lawsuits were filed against manufacturers including Johnson & Johnson's Ethicon subsidiary, Boston Scientific, C.R. Bard, and American Medical Systems [3]. Total industry settlements have reached an estimated $8 billion [13].

Source: Drugwatch / Court Records

Data as of Mar 10, 2026CSV

Key milestones in the litigation include American Medical Systems' $830 million settlement covering approximately 20,000 claims in 2014; Boston Scientific's $189 million multistate settlement in 2021; and a landmark $120 million verdict against Ethicon in the Susan McFarland case in 2019 [13]. In May 2025, a federal court ordered Boston Scientific to pay $26.7 million to four women over injuries from its Pinnacle pelvic floor repair kit [13].

The FDA took regulatory action in April 2019, banning all transvaginal mesh products for pelvic organ prolapse — though notably not for SUI [3].

Internationally, Australia saw a major class action against Johnson & Johnson succeed, with a $105 million settlement from Boston Scientific in March 2023 [10]. In New Zealand, the government's accident compensation body paid NZ$23.6 million on 959 claims [10]. In Scotland, women received approximately £100,000 each in out-of-court settlements, and the Scottish government established a reimbursement scheme for private mesh removal surgery costs [10].

But for the vast majority of affected women in England, these legal avenues have been difficult to access. Many lack the resources or health to pursue lengthy litigation. The Hughes Report was designed precisely to address this gap — to provide a non-adversarial, accessible route to compensation that would not require women to relive their trauma in courtrooms.

Living With the Aftermath

Behind the policy debates and legal proceedings are real women whose daily lives have been fundamentally altered. The complications from vaginal mesh are not abstract medical statistics. They are women who cannot pick up their children. Women who have lost their jobs because they cannot sit at a desk without excruciating pain. Women whose intimate relationships have been destroyed. Women who have been told, repeatedly, that their pain is not real — or that it is their fault.

The Cumberlege Review heard testimony from more than 600 women [5]. Many described a pattern of dismissal by medical professionals who were reluctant to acknowledge that the mesh could be the cause of their symptoms. Some women reported being accused of exaggerating their pain or subjected to surveillance by NHS bodies [1].

For women in Northern Ireland, the situation has been compounded by devolved health structures. In April 2025, the issue was debated in the Northern Ireland Assembly, with members calling for affected women in all parts of the UK to have equal access to any redress scheme that might eventually be established [1].

What Comes Next

The vaginal mesh scandal sits at the intersection of several systemic failures: a regulatory framework that was too slow to identify and respond to patient harm; a medical culture that historically minimised women's pain; a legal system that favours those with resources; and a political system that has repeatedly acknowledged the problem without delivering a solution.

Dr Hughes, the Patient Safety Commissioner, has indicated she will approach Number 10 directly to press for action on financial redress [7]. Campaigners continue to organise, with figures like Susan McLarnon making the journey to Downing Street to demand that promises become reality [1].

The precedent exists. The UK government established the Infected Blood Compensation Authority to provide redress for victims of the contaminated blood scandal — a process that, while imperfect, demonstrated that state-backed compensation schemes for medical harm are achievable. Mesh campaigners have pointed to this as evidence that the infrastructure and the will can be found when there is sufficient political pressure.

What remains unclear is whether that pressure will materialise before more women lose their fight. Many of the women affected are ageing, their health deteriorating. Some have died while waiting. For those who remain, every month without action is another month of pain without acknowledgment — and another month in which the government's silence speaks louder than any report.