I first started doing bilateral simultaneous hip procedures about three years ago, and the results have been very good. If both hips are as bad as each other, it makes a lot of sense to have them both sorted out at the same time. It sounds daunting, but it means having only one anaesthetic, one hospital admission and one period of rehabilitation. We have developed an efficient and safe pathway of care which means that most patients are in hospital for about a week, and are usually back to work/normal activities three months after surgery.

Careful patient selection is very important, and not everyone is suitable for the procedure. In this case we usually perform the two operations about 3-6 months apart. A recent meta-analysis looked at the results of 2063 bilateral simultaneous hip replacements and concluded  ‘This procedure was..found to be economically and functionally efficacious when performed by experienced surgeons in specialist centres’.

If you would like to discuss this in more detail, please contact us.