The reporter writes about the making of The Truth About Going Under the Knife.
Jennifer Carr was looking understandably nervous as she waited with her husband in the foyer of the University Hospital of Hartlepool. Four years ago she had a hip replacement - usually one of the most successful of all surgical procedures. But Jennifer has been in pain ever since and now she was waiting to go back into the operating theatre to go through it all again.
Once surgeons began the operation they quickly confirmed what they'd suspected - that microscopic fragments of metal from Jennifer's hip replacement had worked their way into her flesh, bone and bloodstream.
Jennifer is just one of a number of patients whose stories we tell. Another is retired businessman Chris Pitt. In his case a piece of hi-tech medical technology designed to save his life backfired on him - quite literally.
Chris is one of tens of thousands of people with heart problems who relies on a combined pacemaker and defibrillator inside his chest to keep him alive. Like hip replacements, these devices represent a huge advance in medicine and transform thousands of lives.
This kind of device is the size of a cigarette lighter with wires leading to the heart. If Chris's heart goes into a dangerous rhythm the machine will deliver a shock to restore a normal beat. But, on Christmas Day 2008, Chris was perfectly well and relaxing with his family when the defibrillator misfired - more than 30 times. Chris's wife says it looked as if he was levitating off the sofa.
Defibrillators and hip replacements are just two examples of the massive array of what are called medical devices. There are an estimated 80,000 different sorts on the market, from basics like bandages and hospital beds to sophisticated pieces of engineering that go inside the human body. These kind of items bring immense benefits - they prolong and save lives, and they improve the quality of people's existence. But they can also cause terrible problems if they go wrong.
Every year the government agency that regulates devices, the MHRA, puts out about a hundred safety alerts on devices that may cause problems for patients. The problems range from minor incidents to death. Many of these products are voluntarily recalled by the companies that make them. But while you can take a faulty kettle back to the shop - imagine your feelings if you discover, after something has been implanted deep in your body, that you may need another operation to remove it.
Working with the British Medical Journal (BMJ), we examined the regulations covering these devices. We wanted to find out how they are tested before they get into the hands of a surgeon - and the body of a patient. To undertake the investigation, we travelled three continents, and looked at recent problems affecting a variety of medical devices. One of these turned out to be a new issue with potentially massive implications for the NHS and thousands of people in Britain.
