About NAHR

What is the NAHR?
The NAHR is a national register of operations on, or around the hip other than hip replacements and operations carried as a consequence of acute trauma to the hip.

Background to the formation of the NAHR
The hip joint and surrounding tissues can be affected by many different conditions, some of which may require surgery for their treatment. These operations are common and usually successful, bringing many patients improved mobility and relief from pain. However, when there is a choice of procedures for a condition it is not always clear which operation gives the best results for patients in the long term. A number of people may at some time in the future need another operation on the same joint.
The results of hip replacements (hip arthroplasties) in England and Wales are already captured on the National Joint Registry (NJR) (http://www.njrcentre.org.uk/). To improve further the quality of hip surgery in the United Kingdom, the British Hip Society has set up the Non Arthroplasty Hip Register (NAHR) to monitor the outcome for patients of all other types of operations on the hip. Cases from both the NHS and the independent health care sectors are included in this register, the success of which depends on gathering information on as many people having these operations as possible.

Who enters data?
Surgeons carrying out this type of surgery will enter data if a patient gives their consents for the information to be recorded. Patients will then be contacted for information about their progress, ideally by e-mail, at infrequent intervals after the operation.

What happens to a patient’s data?
Data collected via the NAHR may be used to establish the success of surgery and for medical research, however this data will be anonymised so that it will not be possible to identify individual patients.
Bluespier is the data processor and the BHS is the data controller. Consent will be required from patients for their data to be entered on the NAHR. The system is fully compliant with the Data Protection Act.

Will patients benefit?
The data will be used to bring direct benefits to patients by:
• improving patient awareness of the outcomes of operations on the hip since results will be available in the public domain
• comparing the success rates of different operations on the hip
• helping to identify which patients would benefit from a specific surgical technique
• identifying which surgical procedure is most likely to bring benefit for a specific diagnosis

Who else will benefit?
The NAHR data will bring additional long-term benefits to surgeons and hospitals by:
• providing feedback to orthopaedic surgeons to define which patients will benefit from surgery and what details of the operative procedure will define a good result. The surgeon will have validated outcome data available to them.
• identifying patients who are likely to benefit from a particular procedure
• promoting open publication of outcomes following surgery

What information will be published from the NAHR?
Key Reports from NAHR in the future will include the following:
• Outcomes by operation and\or diagnosis
• Further surgery based on selected procedure and\or diagnosis
• Outcome by Patient Reported Outcome Scores (PROMS data)