Recommended redress schemes for harm caused by pelvic mesh and Sodium Valproate delayed: one year on from The Hughes Report

The recommendations of The Hughes Report were explored in our earlier, February 2024 briefing. 

Encouragingly, the Hughes Report recommends that any proposed redress schemes should be co-designed with the affected patients themselves.  In reality, final decisions regarding the scope and design of the schemes would fall to government ministers.

Before the government will be in a position to make decisions on how to quantify patients’ losses and compensate them for the harm caused, the Report indicates it will first need to establish the size of the harmed population and the severity of injury in question, so as to cost out the financial implications.

In the year that has passed since The Hughes Report was published, patients seem to be no closer now to understanding the scope of the proposed redress schemes or the mechanisms that would be used to compensate them under those schemes for the harm and losses suffered.

The Hughes Report pitches the option of redress as an alternative to “full litigation compensation”, emphasising clearly that “redress is different to compensation through litigation”.  It adds that “such schemes do not try to match how a court would award financial damages”.

The Report goes further in acknowledging that compensation under the recommended redress schemes “may result in awards less than court awarded damages” and therefore “only represent a contribution towards the losses people have suffered”.

Patients who have suffered harm as a result of pelvic mesh or Sodium Valproate may have viable civil compensation claims for medical negligence.  If they have not done so already and are minded to explore the option of seeking compensation through litigation, they should seek legal advice on their rights as a priority.

The mechanism for quantifying losses in compensation claims is clear and established in law.  The courts look to ensure that compensation will put claimants back in the position they would have been in before they suffered injury.

Claimants can seek compensation for their pain and suffering (in other words, injuries established to have been caused by negligence); and also any direct financial losses they would not otherwise have incurred had they received appropriate treatment.

If liability is established, compensation would be investigated by obtaining independent medical expert reports regarding their injuries; and collating evidence of the financial expenses to which they have been put over the years.

There are possible advantages to redress schemes that may appeal to some patients.  The Hughes Report rightly suggests they could provide “an easier, less stressful, and non-adversarial route” for patients to access financial recompense following harm.

Another potential advantage is that redress schemes could provide a mechanism for family members who have been “indirectly harmed” by pelvic mesh or Sodium Valproate to claim some financial compensation for the impact they have experienced.  Whilst the Report recommends this as a possible option, it does also point out that this would be subject to further consultation and, again, a matter for government ministers to decide.

To date the recommended redress schemes have not yet materialised.  It is therefore important that patients are aware of their right to explore the option of claiming compensation through litigation and the strict legal timeframes that apply.

Patients looking to bring civil claims for compensation arising from injury should be aware of the strict legal timeframes for formally starting a case at Court.

The primary deadline for starting legal proceedings in a negligence claim arising from injury is three years from the date of the alleged negligence.

The three-year timeframe can, in some cases, start to run from a later point in time, known as the patient’s ‘date of knowledge’. This can be particularly important in medical negligence cases where it may only be sometime after the negligent treatment that a patient comes to know they have been harmed.

The precise deadline that would apply to any given case would need to be carefully considered with reference to medical records and the patient’s account of events.

If you have been affected by any of the issues above, please speak with a member of the personal injury team, who act for a number of clients impacted both by injury caused by pelvic mesh surgery and damage to children whose mothers were prescribed Sodium Valproate during pregnancy.