Help improve care for people with bone and joint problems in west and north west London
We are NHS clinicians and managers providing hospital, community health and general practice services. We are working together to join up our care and to make best use of our collective resources – for patients who need regular support or one-off treatment.
We want to improve our routine orthopaedic surgery (such as knee or hip replacements) and wider musculoskeletal services (bone and joint services including physiotherapy, pain management and rehabilitation). This includes reducing the long waiting times for routine surgery that have built up during the Covid-19 pandemic.
As well as reducing waiting times, some of the other goals we want to achieve include:
- Ensuring the same high quality of care everywhere; there are currently differences in outcomes – such as length of stay for routine surgery – across different hospitals
- Tackling inequalities for some groups within our local population, especially in terms of access
- Enabling patients to be more in control of their own health and care; helping everyone in our local population to be as well as possible for as long as possible
- Making sure we continue to attract and retain great staff who love their jobs and continue to build their skills and expertise.
- Maximising the potential of digital technologies and other innovations without leaving anyone behind.
One specific initiative we are exploring is bringing together much of our routine orthopaedic surgery in one dedicated centre for north west London. Examples in other parts of the NHS have shown that this approach can improve quality as well as enable patients to be treated more efficiently and therefore more quickly. With investment and expansion, the Central Middlesex Hospital in Park Royal could provide an ideal location – without an A&E department, it is easier to continue with planned care there even when there is high demand elsewhere for urgent and emergency care.
To help develop our proposals for improvement, we want to make sure we fully understand the needs, views and preferences of patients, carers and local communities and get ideas for what would make the biggest difference.
We have commissioned specialist company Verve Communications to work with us to run two online events to:
- Explore in detail with local people what hospital and community services for people with bone and joint problems in west and north west London should look like in the future and how we best address current challenges and opportunities.
- Enable our local community and our team – including doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, and managers – to get to know each other a little better, including through a Q&A discussion on common bone and joint concerns and how to stay well while waiting for care.
Please register for one of the community events, which will be held online:
Anyone living in west or north west London is welcome and we are particularly keen to involve people who are – or have been – patients with bone and joint problems. You won’t need to share any personal details during the event – even your name – but we would like to take a few details so that we know which parts of the community we have reached.
We will also be running a series of smaller focus groups to allow more opportunities for conversation with the community. If you would like to take part in these focus groups or sign up to be kept in touch with this project or other improvement work in the future, please get in touch by emailing imperial.involvement@nhs.net
We hope you will want to take part!
