Legal News
NHS To Pay for the Removal of Faulty Breast Implants (10 January 2012)
Date: 10/01/2012
The NHS has announced that it will pay for the removal of faulty PIP breast implants. Around 3,000 patients are believed to have received PIP breast implants on the NHS. The health secretary Andrew Lansley has also announced that around 47,000 private patients who have received PIP implants could have their implants removed by the NHS, if there was a clinical need for it. Mr. Lansley stated that he had not been in receipt of any evidence which recommended the routine removal of these breast implants but claimed that the private clinics which had fitted them should feel obliged to remove them and, in the event that they failed to do so, the NHS would remove them instead and the Government would attempt to claim back the money from the private clinics themselves.
The definition of a clinical need for removal includes women whose breast implants remain intact but who feel overwhelmed with anxiety over the scare. The Government expects the majority of private clinics to fund the cost of implant removal but has vowed that no woman would be left abandoned. In the event that the NHS was to meet the cost of the removal of the total of 50,000 implants fitted in women, the bill would reach around £150 million.
Concerns over the safety of PIP implants were initially raised in France. The failure rate for the implants is between five and ten per cent. Tests have revealed that the implants are filled with an industrial-grade silicone.
Duncan Lewis’ personal injury solicitors can offer legal guidance to women fitted with faulty breast implants.