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Leeds Beckett leads new study to look at impact of surgery on women’s health
Now, a team of researchers led by Leeds Beckett University has been successful in securing funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) towards a new £1.6m, three-year study into complications from mesh surgery. The study will aim to properly understand and assess women’s full range of experiences following surgery for prolapse, incontinence and mesh complications.
Sharon Greenwood, who underwent mesh surgery for pelvic floor problems following childbirth, said: “It is so important to me that women of all ages, cultures and social backgrounds have a voice in their health care. This study will allow healthcare professionals to gain an insight into the psychological as well as physical needs of all women needing this type of surgery, which is sadly lacking due to many factors. I really believe that we can turn this fractured care into a smooth, well informed and supportive pathway for everyone.”
Inspired by the patient accounts and campaigns reporting harm, in 2020, the Cumberlege Mesh Report 'First Do No Harm' was published. Led by Baroness Julia Cumberlege, it described how mesh surgery for prolapse and incontinence had resulted in serious adverse outcomes for women across the UK, and it concluded that the healthcare system had been “disjointed, siloed, unresponsive, and defensive. It does not adequately recognise that patients are its raison d’être.”
In response to this, the NIHR, issued a commissioned call for a team to develop a new patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) in the future to measure the impacts of these surgical treatments upon women’s lives and identify sooner any potential adverse outcomes.
The team of researchers, from Leeds Beckett University’s Centre for Psychological Research, are working in collaboration with patients, and Sheffield, Oxford, Manchester and Aberdeen Universities, Sheffield, Norfolk and Waveney, Epsom and St Helier, and Oxford NHS Trusts and InSpired Health Outcomes. The British Society of Urogynaecology and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists are also assisting with this new study.
Leading the study is Georgina Jones, Professor of Health Psychology in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Leeds Beckett University: “We are delighted to be delivering this major piece of research which will help improve the lives of many thousands of women all over the world and give them a better opportunity to report the impact of surgery for prolapse, incontinence and mesh complications on their daily lives and well-being.
“Eventually, this PROM will be adopted by a new surgical registry established by NHS England. It will be used across the UK as part of routine clinical care to generate sufficiently large datasets to audit mesh safety and answer pressing research questions relating to the efficacy of surgical treatments, as self-reported by women living with prolapse, incontinence and mesh complications.”
Swati Jha, Professor of Urogynaecology at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, and study co-lead said: “As the lead for the Sheffield Mesh Complication Centre, one of the biggest challenges we are up against as clinicians is the inability to see the progress in the patient’s journey through their initial treatment and onwards. The development of a unified PROM which has input from patients who have all ranges of pelvic floor surgery including native tissue, mesh repairs as well as mesh complications, means we are better placed to collect data and identify problems that can be associated with any surgery, and in particular mesh implants.
“No patient should be in a situation where they are unable to communicate their symptoms and discuss this with their doctor; through the development of this PROM, we have to make the process of communicating both positive and negative effects of surgery more seamless.”
The study will run until 2026.