Specialist knee services arrive at Queen’s Hospital
An acute knee clinic has been providing patients at Queen’s Hospital Burton with specialist care closer to home, providing further evidence of the benefits to patients one year on from the creation of UHDB on 1 July 2018.
Prior to the inception of the clinic, patients presenting at A&E with soft tissue knee injuries, such as ligament damage, were sent to the fracture clinic at Queen’s Hospital Burton before being referred onto a knee specialist.
In a bid to reduce the patients’ waiting time and provide better clinical outcomes, the acute knee clinic was set up to mirror the offering available at the Royal Derby Hospital, where a super-specialised knee clinic has been available to patients.
Mr Navjot Bhangoo, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at UHDB, runs the clinic in Burton, and says that the benefits to patients have been clear to see:
“There’s no doubt the services at RDH are super-specialised and are some of the only services of their kind in the country. We felt that it was only fair that we offered the same services at Queen’s Hospital, so the population there were offered the same level of care to our patients in Derby. There was no doubt that the skills set already existed in Burton, but by working with the team, we’ve been able to create a streamlined service to help the team pick up these patients in a quicker manner.
“The work we’ve put in over the last couple of months really gives patients the chance to be seen quicker, and get the right investigations and appropriate management, so any injuries they do have can be treated in a timely manner with far better outcomes and preventing delay in their treatment which in the long term, could really slow down their return to work, sporting activities and day-to-day activities.”
Mr Bhangoo was also keen to praise the staff at Queen’s Hospital Burton for their efforts to ensure that the clinic has been as successful as it has.
He added: “There’s no doubt to make this all work it needed a lot of input from the team at Queen’s Hospital Burton. This includes the nursing staff, staff from the fracture clinic and the clinicians who have referred into the clinic have all made the Acute Knee Clinic a pleasure to run over the past six months. We are now looking to evolve it further and involve more clinicians on a more regular basis to cross-fertilise our skill set as best as possible.”
Such has been the success and popularity of the clinics, Mr Bhangoo revealed that there are plans afoot to further expand the service to patients in Burton, providing further benefits to them in their local hospital.
Mr Bhangoo said: “The clinics have been growing in numbers on a weekly basis, so much so that my registrar now attends them with me. We’re planning to involve physiotherapy colleagues as well to serve the population and growing needs that are being shown at Queen’s Hospital Burton.”