News

Patients in the Western Isles are requiring shorter stays in hospital following elective joint replacement surgeries, as a result of the introduction of an innovative pre-admission clinic.

NHS Western Isles introduced a nurse-led Arthroplasty Pre-admission Clinic in June 2022 to ensure that as many Orthopaedic patients as possible attending for arthroplasty surgery are admitted to hospital on the day of surgery. Prior to this clinic, all patients were admitted to hospital in Stornoway the day before surgery.

Best practice for elective joint replacement is for patients to be admitted on the day of surgery, and there are significant benefits to this for the patient, including enhanced patient recovery, reduced length of stay and infection risks, improved patient journey and reduction in late cancellations.

The success of this clinic has led to the majority of patients being discharged from hospital on day 2 following their surgery, with 14 patients to date being discharged on day 1 following surgery.

Nicola Libby, NHS Western Isles Arthroplasty Practitioner, said: “All patients discharged on day 1 will receive a visit at home from the Arthroplasty Assistant the following day. If patients don’t feel ready to be discharged their care will continue on the ward, where they will also be cared for by the Arthroplasty Assistant.”

NHS Western Isles Chief Executive, Gordon Jamieson, said: “The pre-admission clinic is an excellent example of a patient-centred service that has been introduced to improve the patient experience. We now have good evidence of improvements to the patient journey as a result of this service.  Most importantly, the patients are extremely satisfied with the new service, as evidenced by their feedback. I would like to sincerely thank all staff involved in developing and delivering this service for all their hard work and commitment. It has clearly had a positive impact on the patient experience, which was the key objective from the outset.”

Patient feedback has been extremely positive, with individuals stating that the clinic was “very helpful”, and staff made them feel “very at ease”.  When asked how satisfied they were with the Pre-admission Clinic, 98.28% of patients answered, “very satisfied”.

Other feedback received included:

“Couldn’t fault anything. Extremely nice nurses at both clinics who immediately made me feel at ease.”

“Everyone was very helpful. I didn’t feel rushed, my questions were answered, and I was reassured.”

“It was a calming and reassuring experience. Very thorough explanations for all concerned. Much better than having to go through this process after admission.”