Bristol hospital bosses have tightened up how patients’ consent is obtained and new medical procedures approved after more than 200 people were harmed from unnecessary bowel surgery. A report to North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT), which runs Southmead Hospital, last week revealed dozens of people were left in severe pain after consultant colorectal surgeon Tony Dixon gave them pelvic floor surgery using artificial mesh.
The review concluded there were 203 cases from the 387 investigated where the patient should have been offered alternative, less invasive treatment and so were deemed to have come to harm, although the operation had been carried out satisfactorily. Lives had been “ruined”, a trust board meeting heard.
Mr Dixon, who was suspended when concerns were first raised in 2017 and sacked by NBT two years later, pioneered the use of artificial mesh to lift prolapsed bowels, a technique known as laparoscopic ventral mesh rectopexy (LVMR), which can result from childbirth. He performed the operations between 2007 and 2017 at Southmead and also the Spire Hospital, a private facility where NHS patients overseen by NBT were regularly referred.
