South East London NHS

Orthopaedic Services

Ideas for making orthopaedic

services better

Orthopaedic

Orthopaedic means parts of your

body like your

• Bones

• Joints

• Ligaments

• Tendons

• Muscles

• Nerves.

It is about how your body moves.

Good orthopaedic

services

• We want to make orthopaedic

services better for everyone

in south east London.

• We have some ideas about

how to do this.

• We want to know what you

think.

• If we decide to make big

changes we will ask everyone

what they think. This is called

a public consultation.

Helping us decide

what to do

We talked to

• Patients and the public

• Doctors, nurses, other healthcare

staff and health commissioners

• Orthopaedic surgeons and other

people from south east London

hospitals

• Social care staff from local

authorities

• Healthwatch and other groups in

the community

Planned operations

There are 7 hospitals in south east London that do

orthopaedic operations where patients need to stay in

hospital overnight.

Some surgeons have more experience than others of

different types of orthopaedic surgery.

• Routine operations – operations like hip and knee

replacements. The hospitals do lots of these. All the

surgeons in the different hospitals do these

operations in a similar way.

• Complex operations – these are more difficult

operations, like ankle replacements. Surgeons might

do complex operations in different ways and are likely

to do these less often.

Why we need

changes

• People are living longer so a lot more

people will need orthopaedic surgery.

• Some patients are waiting a long time for

their appointment.

• If there is an emergency (like a car

crash), orthopaedic surgery might be

cancelled to carry out emergency

surgery.

Why we need

changes

• We need to use the money we have for

orthopaedic services in the best way we can.

• We want to make sure patients that have

orthopaedic surgery heal well and get better as

quickly as they can.

• We want all patients to get the same standard of

care and surgery.

Having 2 orthopaedic

centres

We want to compare how things are now with

our idea of having 2 centres for planned

orthopaedic operations.

We think having 2 centres to do all planned

orthopaedic operations will work best.

These centres would be a part of hospitals

that are already there.

We think this will make orthopaedic services

better for everyone.

What this means

Having 2 planned centres means

• More operations so people don’t have to wait so

long.

• Fewer operations being cancelled because the

centres will only do planned operations.

• Better infection control so people get well as

quickly as they can.

• Patients will be well looked after before and after

their operation by expert staff

• Operations will cost less and make better use of

the money.

What might change

It is only the operation that would happen at 1 of

the centres.

Patients will be able to go to the hospital nearest to

them for anything they need before and after

surgery.

For example:

• Appointments before surgery.

• Surgery that is completed in one day and does

not need a patient to stay in over night.

• Follow up appointments after surgery.

Emergency orthopaedic surgery will still be

done in A and E.

There are 4 hospitals who want to provide these services.

If we go forward we will need to choose 2 of them, after a

consultation.

Guy’s Hospital University Hospital Lewisham

Queen Mary’s, Sidcup Orpington Hospital

Choices for

2 orthopaedic centres

Choice 4

University Hospital Lewisham and Orpington Hospital

Choice 5

University Hospital Lewisham and Queen Mary’s, Sidcup

Choice 6

Orpington Hospital and

Queen Mary’s, Sidcup

Choice 1

Guy’s Hospital and

University Hospital Lewisham

Choice 2

Guy’s Hospital and

Orpington Hospital

Choice 3

Guy’s Hospital and

Queen Mary’s, Sidcup

How we will choose

A group will look at all the information.

They will decide which choices out of the

6 work well. They will also decide which

choices will not work well.

The group will be made up of

• GPs

• NHS commissioners – these are the

people who decide what NHS services

are needed and how much they will

cost

• People from patient groups

• People who are experts.

Committee in Common

The group will look at all the choices.

They will tell a committee of senior GPs

and managers from the 6 NHS areas in

south east London and a group of patients.

This committee is called the Committee in

Common.

The Committee in Common then decide

which choices to ask the public about in the

public consultation.

Asking the public

After the Committee in Common

make the final choices there will be a

public consultation.

This is when everyone who lives in

south east London has the chance to

say

• If they think having 2 orthopaedic

centres are a good idea.

• Which 2 hospitals should become

the orthopaedic centres.

What happens after the

public consultation

• If we decide to have 2

orthopaedic centres it might take

several years to do this.

• There will be more information

about what happens next after the public consultation.

Telling us

what you think

Nothing has been decided yet.

We want to know what you think of the ideas so

far.

We also want to know how you would like to take

part in the public consultation.

You can tell us what you think in these ways

• Online: ourhealthiersel.nhs.uk

• In writing: Our Healthier South East London,

PO BOX 64529, London SE1P 5LX or email

ourhealthiersel@nhs.net

• On Twitter: @ourhealthiersel

Some questions for you

• Do you think the changes we want to make will make a difference to the people you care for? This might be in a good or a bad way – please tell us more.

• If the changes are bad, is there anything that we can do to make things better?

• If there changes are good, is there anything we can do to make things even better?

• Is there anything else we haven’t thought about that would make orthopaedic surgery better?

Public consultation

• How would you like to take part in the public consultation?

• Do you or anyone you care for need extra

information to take part? • What information and formats would you find most

useful and how should we make this information available?

• How would you like to feedback to us? • Are there any other questions we should be asking? • Do you understand how the changes we want to

make fit into our work called ‘Our Healthier South East London’?

• Do you want to tell us anything else?