1000 private PIP implant patients seek NHS remedy

Posted 10/02/2012

Figures just released report that around 1,000 patients who received PIP breast implants under private medical care have contacted the NHS for treatment. Currently the policy in England is that these faulty breast implants will be removed under the NHS even if they were implanted under private care, as long as this is thought medically advisable. However, the NHS will not replace these – although in Wales the NHS has said it will replace the implants after removing them.

It is generally only where people who had the implants done privately and where they now find the clinics that did the operation have gone bust, that they need to call on the NHS for help.There are also some 745 patients who were given PIP implants as NHS patients in the first place, usually as part of reconstructive surgery. The NHS has promised it will both remove and replace the implants for these patients. Nonetheless the wide publicity given to the faulty breast implants has caused a great deal of distress and worry to these patients who have already been through a great deal of trauma.Trefine Maynard, one of our experienced medical negligence solicitors, reports that we are now acting for a number of individuals who were given these faulty breast implants, as well as an increasing number of people who as NHS patients were given faulty hips, or what are referred to as ‘metal on metal’ hip implants. These are mostly those made by DePuy and have caused considerable pain and disability in patients which is only relieved by undergoing a further operation to remove the DePuy hip and replacing it.Trefine commented: “Patients always feel very let down by medical care which leaves them with additional problems and often with more pain and disability than they had before undergoing treatment. Both the cases involving the PIP implants and the DePuy hips understandably lead to feelings of outrage on the realisation that even in these days when Health and Safety seems to rule even the most innocent of activities, manufacturers still seem to get away with using health products that have not been either properly tested or properly screened. In giving doctors permission to operate, patients put total trust in those treating them and the doctors put trust in those supplying the products. Ensuring that products that are to be put into patients’ bodies are fully tested and safe must surely be one of the most important and essential duties – yet this has clearly failed all too many patients.”