Hip And Knee Replacement Backlog Exceeding 160,000 After Covid Delays

Almost 100,000 hip replacements were performed in 2019 and this was still insufficient to cater for the increased demand and waiting lists for these procedures were rapidly increasing before the start of the pandemic.

Ageing populations have increased the demand for joint arthroplasty and the number of hip replacements performed each year has more than doubled since 2004 (reference).

As elective surgery was scaled back in the peak of the pandemic, joint arthroplasties were seen as one of the logical candidates to be postponed and less than half the forecasted number of surgeries were performed across the country. The number of patients requiring these life-changing operations has sky-rocketed to over 160,000. There has been a major shift in accessing private care as patients that are able to afford such care have been forced to pay at minimum £12,000 to have these done in the Independent Sector. Even with these very high costs, 2021 was the first year that this surgery was performed in higher numbers in the private versus the public sector, indicating how important this surgery is to patients suffering from degenerative joint disease.
 
Aside from the added pressures that Covid has placed on the health system, major demographic changes that mean demand for this surgery will continue to increase and outstrip current supply forecasts. Projected demand also varies significantly as the impact of ageing, increases in obesity and other factors all impact on the need for this surgery. The long delays for surgery further impact the efficacy and recovery time as patients local muscle strength and overall condition is affected from the decline in activities of daily living due to pain. 
 
Rapid recovery or Enhanced recovery hip replacement surgery aims to discharge patients within 24hrs of their surgery and has been adopted across the developed world for applicable patients. This enables a far higher output per hospital and reports show better patient outcomes and satisfaction with the surgery. The adoption of Rapid recovery for hip replacements has ironically been anything but rapid in the UK and the country lags the OECD in its utilisation of this approach. The further irony is that as waiting lists blow out and patients present with more progressive joint disease and weakness these approaches are less likely to be effective and the overall burden on the healthcare sector increases significantly as patients require up to a week post-operatively before discharge. 
 
The Surgical Consortium has a team of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Anaesthetists, theatre staff and pre-and-post-op rehabilitation practitioners that are focussed on utilising Rapid Recovery approach where appropriate. These are done at a significant discount to the National Tariff rates, performed during fallow theatre times by substantive NHS surgeons and require less bed days per patient than traditional approaches. If you want have a preliminary discussion to see if this could work in your hospital contact info@thesurgicalconsortium.com.