With the publication of surgeon and clinic outcome data published in the National Joint Registry (NJR), a lot of the guess work required for finding out how good your doctor is, is removed.
Knee replacement operations are often presented as a package of services. These packages sometimes consist of 3 elements, as follows:
- preoperative functional assessment and planning,
- intra-operative navigation, and
- postoperative analysis and assessment.
The more advanced clinics are now also including 'Rapid Recovery".
If you only have a simple knee problem all this may sound overly complicated, especially if you are one of those people who assume that all operations work out well in the end anyway. However, the outcome data from the NJR shows something different. If you place a high value on your health then all the small investments in technology, experience and incremental improvements in surgical approaches that make an excellent outcome more certain, is certainly worth consideration.
Totalhealth is fortunate to have a number of the best London-based knee surgeons writing for us including:
- Mr Sam Rajaratnam - performs only knee surgery, and is officially rated at the top of the NJR tables of all surgeons
- Mr Michael Wilkinson – Sprained knee specialist at the Lister Hospital
- Mr Howard Ware – Total knee replacement expert at the Wellington Hospital
- Mr Charles Gibbons – Partial knee replacement specialist at the Lister Hospital
- Mr Panos Thomas – Specialist in non-surgical treatments for the knee at Woolaston House
- Prof Nicola Maffulli - Expert in knee lsurgery for sports injuries at the Princess Grace Hospital
- Mr Dinesh Nathwani - Specialises in Computer Navigation and Knee Joint Replacement at The London Clinic
- Mr Charles Willis-Owen - Specialist in Cruciate Ligament Injuries, Queen Elizabeth Hospital
The starting point when choosing any joint replacement surgeon is to see their published National Joint Registry (NJR) surgical performance ratings. This can be found at https://surgeonprofile.njrcentre.org.uk. Also check the data available on your surgeon's NJR, five and ten year revision rates for their joint replacement surgery.