Pleas for the government to reverse its policy of refusing all women affected by the breast implants scandal to have them removed and replaced on the NHS have been rejected.

MPs made repeated appeals to the public health minister, Anne Milton, at a special debate held at Westminster on 5 July on the issue of women who had received privately paid for implants from the discredited French manufacturer Poly Implant Prosthèse (PIP).

A scandal emerged last year over the implants of the now bankrupt manufacturer, which used non-medical grade silicone in breast implants that were given to around 47 000 women in the United Kingdom.1 2

The government made what it called the “NHS offer” earlier this year: namely, to pay for removal …