The National Joint Registry (NJR) collects information about hip, knee, ankle, elbow and shoulder joint replacement operations from all participating hospitals in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and Guernsey. The registry records patient information and provides data, analysis and reporting on the performance and longevity of replacement joint implants; the surgical outcomes for the hospitals where these operations are carried out, and on the performance outcomes of the surgeons who conduct the procedures.
The NJR produces this Annual Report which summarises its work and shares the analysis of data for the past year, visually in tables and graphs, for procedures across each of the joints, as well as implant and hospital outcomes. The purpose and work of the NJR is for clinical improvement; to improve clinical standards, for the benefit of patients, clinicians, and the orthopaedic sector as a whole.
Described as a global exemplar of an implantable medical device registry, the NJR continues to be the largest orthopaedic registry in the world, with an international reputation. The most notable statistic this year has been the 4 millionth record being submitted to the registry, for a patient at Wrightington Hospital, which is fitting due to the pioneering work of Professor Sir John Charnley having performed the first ever hip-replacement operations at Wrightington in the early 1960s.
The NJR supports the use of its rich data pool for use in research for a wide range of studies, highlighting and informing best practice in joint replacement surgery, for the benefit of patients.
The NJR research programme supports fellowships and application requests to use NJR data and this report contains some short research paper abstracts, and also recent research which looks at the extent of COVID recovery and whether the NHS has resumed to previous surgical volume levels.
The NJR has shown that orthopaedic surgery, as one of the main users of implant devices in the UK, is demonstrating the highest standards of patient safety with regard to their use. A key message from the report is that safety and clinical outcomes continue to improve, as identified through the reduction of revision surgery.
The NJR is ever grateful to patients undergoing joint replacement surgery in providing consent for their data to be added to the registry and made available to the NJR for analysis and thus enabling the NJR to develop such a rich and valuable data source. The registry is also appreciative of the work of data entry staff in all participating hospitals, who willingly engage in stringent data quality award programmes to ensure the data submitted is of high quality, accurate and as complete as is possible.