Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:19 pm on 11 July 2018.
Having met a large group of mesh survivors here with Jane Hutt on Monday, both women and men, it's clear to me that the issue of informed consent is quite a major one, because people were not informed about potential complications and it's disappointing that it's taken the medical profession so many years to really listen to their patients and understand the level of suffering that people have undergone. I heard directly from people who said that they'd undergone a major investigative procedure under general anaesthetic, and then awoke to be told that mesh had been inserted without, obviously, any prior discussion about the pros and cons of such a procedure. So, would you agree with me that the lesson from this very sorry saga is that the medical profession has got to be much better at clearly seeking and obtaining informed consent when new procedures are being trialed, so that patients can make decisions themselves about what is best for them?