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I think that the answer to that is largely yes, and by the corporate body, on the advice that we received.

Michelle will come in, but the corporate body was made aware of both the overall project when it was launched back in 2017 and the years over which it would run. The budget for the website was not separately identified in each year. It is accommodated in the overall IT and digital budgets, so there was never any exceptional item. It is one of those things, along with maintenance of the building, that have to be planned for on an annualised basis over a period of time. Therefore, the corporate body was aware of it, in the sense that we understood the case for the new website and had been given an indicative idea of the likely cost of and timescale for website development. However, given that lead times for different bits of the project can be compromised in any one year, it was not necessarily the case that any one part of it was scheduled within the budget and identified separately as the bit of the website development that would happen in that particular calendar year.

You are right that it is reasonable for a Parliament to point to other Government services’ websites, because we are not a commercial business—we are a Parliament with an obligation to both internal and external users to ensure that we have a website that is fit for purpose with the capacity to serve the Parliament not just for a year but for the decade ahead.

I think that I know the reason for that, because we also asked that question, but Alan Balharrie should probably answer.

Thank you; that is very helpful.

My colleague, David Torrance, will ask our fourth question, which explores the controlled trials and the low recurrence rates. He will ask a couple of questions that follow on from what you have just said.

Good afternoon and welcome to this exceptional meeting of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee. This is the committee’s eighth meeting in 2022.

We have only one agenda item, which is consideration of continued petition PE1865. The petition was lodged by Roseanna Clarkin, Lauren McDougall and Graham Robertson and calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to suspend the use of all surgical mesh and fixation devices while a review of all surgical procedures that use polyester, polypropylene or titanium is carried out, and while guidelines for the surgical use of mesh are established.

We last considered this petition on 2 February 2022, when we agreed to take evidence from the Shouldice hospital, in Canada, following representations that we received. We understand that it is the only licensed hospital in the world that is dedicated to repairing hernias, and it has been a supporter of natural tissue hernia repair for more than 75 years.

I am delighted to welcome Dr Fernando Spencer Netto, the chief surgeon at Shouldice hospital, and I thank him on behalf of the committee. Dr Spencer Netto joins us virtually—of course, all of us are appearing at this meeting virtually, so we are collectively all virtual.

We have an apology from Fergus Ewing MSP, who is unable to join us today.

Members would like to explore a number of questions with you, Dr Spencer Netto, so we will launch into that. However, I will begin by saying that Scotland has been very much at the forefront of the international discussion on transvaginal mesh repair procedures. Considerable angst and trauma was caused to an incalculable number of women, many of whom were told that they were imagining their suffering and that there was no option other than the mesh that had been fitted. In seeking to remedy that, the Scottish Parliament passed the Transvaginal Mesh Removal (Cost Reimbursement) (Scotland) Act 2022, which will facilitate women travelling to wherever specialist services are available for the removal of that mesh—including to the United States, where specialist services are available in Missouri.

Consequential to that, we have received this petition, which seeks to extend the interest in and potential impact of alternatives to mesh treatments in relation to hernias. The committee is incredibly intrigued and interested in experience from Shouldice hospital, so, by way of an introduction, could you tell us—and the many people who are watching today’s meeting and who will be interested in the discussion that we are about to have—about the work of your hospital, so that we can better understand it from your perspective as its chief surgeon?

The issue that we have had reported by so many people is what happens as a consequence of the use of mesh. In addition to my involvement in the whole question of mesh, I have been a member of the cross-party group on chronic pain. One of the obvious consequences of the use of mesh is the number of people who have presented, post-procedure, with life-crippling, intolerable pain. What is the post-operative life experience of the patients who undergo the procedure that you promulgate?

I understand that.

I fully understand the difference, and that is why we are interested in pursuing information on hernias. It is quite different from transvaginal mesh, and the use of mesh in hernia repairs is far more widespread and has been done over a much longer period.

I am interested in your experience as someone from the leading hernia hospital in Canada. An issue that came across to us was that clinicians were opposed to the idea that there was an alternative treatment to vaginal mesh. You have obviously specialised in your process and can demonstrate that you have had excellent results. Is that widely accepted as a clinical practice by clinicians across Canada, or is there any resistance to the idea that there is an alternative to mesh as an appropriate route forward with hernia repair?

It does.

That is very interesting.