Finding the best surgeons

I can certainly recommend Hugh Apthorp.

Ask any contacts with the medical community. If a surgeon is good enough for their family they will be good enough for ordinary mortals.

Oswestry Orthopaedic Hospital has a good reputation, so I've been told. It is NHS and private.
Are you able to travel?

www.rjah.nhs.uk/our-services/private-patients/

Presuming you're planning to go privately:

My advice to anyone is to check out the teaching hospitals in the nearest major city to you e.g. London, Glasgow, Oxford, Liverpool etc., and see who are orthopaedic consultants, particularly hip specialists. He/she will almost certainly have a private practice.

Further advice would be not to choose a surgeon who only operates in those private second-rate clinics.

Thank you for all the suggestions. I do not want to go private unless I absolutely have to - my savings are dwindling - not because I have been living it up, but because I have had 3 private surgeries (hip, disc removal and cataracts) in order to try and get some quality of life. It appals me that there are of course millions of people who do not have that choice and have to live miserable painful lives.

I am not far from Oswestry and I am thinking that might be a better choice than my local rural one-horse hospital.

I'd choose Oswestry if I could but going cross-border seems impossible now.

My brother had a new hip at the Royal orthopedic hospital in Birmingham over 10 years ago . Even though he moved to Lincolnshire 2 years ago he still goes there for his check ups. He has always said if he needs the other doing he will have it done there.

This is a useful link. Hope it all works out for you. www.nhs.uk/conditions/having-surgery/

Luckygirl3 the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic hospital, Oswestry is excellent. My husband had 50 years of care from there. He had TB hip. Eventually surgeons at Oswestry replaced the hip. Because of long term damage from TB the replacement failed twice. But the surgeon persevered and managed to achieve success the third time giving my husband back his mobility. I have a friend who has been in their care almost all her life. She has scoliosis.
This hospital has a wonderful reputation. I hope you are able to find the help you need.

Have sent a PM lucky

Also have personal experience of the hospital in Gobowen mentioned above but not of their hip revision surgery.
They definitely used to be a centre of excellence for spinal injury and some dystrophy.

We live very locally to the RJAH.Both DH and myself have had operations there and could t have had better treatment if we had gone privately.

When I had my knees and then hips replaced I was sent a form to comment on my experience of the surgery and surgeon with follow up forms every three months or so. This was to enable collection of data re the implants but also the surgeons themselves. I wish I could remember the name of this study as it would provide info re the longer term outcomes for various surgeons. I'll try to track it down.

When the surgery is done by the NHS, how much choice is given as to which surgeon one can choose?
I have had a knee and a hip replaced but was not given a choice either time.
Whether by good luck or not I don’t know but both were highly successful and life enhancing.

Ask your GP they should be able to point you in the right direction. I had surgery done privately years ago and it turned out to be a bodge job. Paying doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to get a better outcome.

Daisymae

Ask your GP they should be able to point you in the right direction. I had surgery done privately years ago and it turned out to be a bodge job. Paying doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to get a better outcome.

I agree.
That happened to a friend so I shall avoid that hospital if I do have to go privately in the end.
The problem is too that the same doctors operate there as in our local NHS hospital so it is luck of the draw.

Annesixty your GP will almost certainly refer you locally - but, within England at least they can apparently refer you to the surgeon/clinic you want as long as they are appropriate. You do, of course have to research where you think is best for you of course.

For my husband he will look at the two or three most "local" hospitals only - he will happily go wherever the GP suggests. I'm more awkward I suppose and will put up with a lot of travelling to see someone I think will work for me!

I am currently "on the books of consultants in Nottingham, London and Birmingham for different specialities. The London referral was nearly Hull, the Nottingham one might have been Birmingham as it was a "toss up" at the time.

My son has been seen in London, Oswestry, Birmingham and Oxford.

We do not live in these places.

Choose where you want to go and under whose care and say it clearly - I think you will be surprised.

I agree with Whiff, The Royal Orthopedic Hospital Birmingham. I had both hips and knees replaced there. They accept people from all around the country and when I was there, I met people who were having surgery to correct the mistakes of other hospitals. My hips were replaced by Mr Dunlop who is above par and such a lovely man. My first hip replacement was 17 years ago and still going strong. All were on the N.H.S. Good Luck.

Use this site
www.rcseng.ac.uk/patient-care/surgical-staff-and-regulation/surgical-outcomes/
Bear in mind though that with certain types of high-risk surgery, the best surgeons may not have the best record, because they decline the riskier patients.

Sorry - meant to say the best and bravest surgeons take on high-risk patients that other surgeons may decline. Hence their record may look worse. My DH was told no surgeon would operate because the risk of success was low and the risk of death was high. One man -a gang-Ho, Type A type - did agree to operate. DH is still alive six years later.

As has already been said, it is best to get a surgeon who also works in the NHS.

Very useful advice, I might very well require an excellent hip surgeon, in the near future

thank you everyone

Speaking to anyone you know who has recently had a hip replacement is all you can do, as the BMA does not allow it members to advertise.

Whether or not you can get a referral to the best department depends entirely on the regulations for hospital catchment areas if you are on the NHS. If a private patient, I imagine it depends on the length of the waiting list.

I had a hip replacement at RJAH in Oswestry last year and the medical care was first rate. Wonderful to be pain free and with good mobility again. However I would advise anyone to avoid their Private Patient package like the plague. My experience included broken blinds with workmen working outside my window, a flooded bathroom, no towel rail or mirror, meals served airline style in plastic boxes and beakers and being told I’d need to go to the cafe to buy coffee! In short - great medically but support services diabolical.

Thanks for all this info. One of the reasons that I might look at Oswestry is that the diagnosis is unclear - I have acute groin pain in the side of my hip replacement (9 years ago) that is getting worse and stops me lifting my right leg. The hip is scanned as structurally sound. I have a discectomy last year for prolapsed disc, so it is possible that the pain might be emanating from there. I need to be somewhere with a variety of orthopaedic specialists so a proper diagnosis can be made.

The private unit sounds a bit naff though!