The most commonly performed surgical procedure for hip arthritis is Total Hip Replacement (THR) with over 80,000 hip replacements performed in the UK every year. Hip replacement surgery is a fantastic procedure which relieves pain and stiffness and restores quality of life to thousands of patients every year. Over the years hip replacement surgery has evolved into a very safe procedure with reliable and reproducible results.
All of our surgeons use only 10A* rated implants with a proven track record of safety and excellent patient outcomes.
Hip replacement surgery is a safe and routinely performed procedure. It involves you having an anaesthetic, either a general anaesthetic when you will be completely unconscious, or a spinal anaesthetic where you will be made numb from the waist down, with some sedation so you are not aware of what is happening. Your anaesthetist will discuss this further when you come in.
A cut about 8 inches long is made on the side of your thigh, and the hip joint opened up. The ball of the ball and socket hip joint is taken away, and replaced with a metal or ceramic ball on a stem, which is cemented into the top of the thigh bone with bone cement. The damaged socket is prepared to accept a new socket which is then inserted accordingly.
The operation takes about an hour to an hour and a half. You will have a drip in your non-dominant arm, and occasionally you may require a blood transfusion during your stay. We aim to get you out of bed on the day of surgery if possible although if you are still a little slow to wake then the following day the physiotherapists will see you. We aim to get you home 3 to 4 days post-operatively but this depends on your level of mobility and speed of recovery post-operatively.
