NHS chiefs order end of rationing for hip and knee ops

Nhs bosses have ordered health boards to stop rationing hip and knee operations.

The intervention follows concerns that patients in parts of the country are being denied joint replacements unless they were in so much pain they could not sleep.

The rationing measures have now been denounced by officials as relying on ‘arbitrary’ cut-offs, and will not even save money. an email from Nhs england to health boards said officials were aware that ‘a number of ccGs [clinical commissioning groups] in england are rationing large joint replacements using arbitrary cut-offs’.

The email, seen by the health service Journal, was sent by a regional Nhs director at the end of last month.

it said ccGs must report to Nhs england on whether they have implemented rationing policies, and said they will have to get permission from bosses before putting them in place in future.

in January it emerged that at three health boards – redditch and Bromsgrove, south Worcestershire, and Wyre Forest – in the West Midlands were drawing up plans to slash the number of operations by a fifth.

The controversial plans, reported by the Daily Mail, proposed that patients would be assessed according to a pain score system based on questions such as: ‘are you troubled by your knee at night in bed?’ and ‘could you walk down a flight of stairs?’

Patient who do not meet a certain score threshold are not eligible for surgery.

Nhs england condemned the scoring and also highlighted the restriction of ‘surgery for smokers and obese people as opposed to a period of slimming support and smoking cessation support for surgery’.