Awards and Accreditation, Cardiff and Vale Hospitals

National Joint Registry 

Cardiff and Vale Hospitals have been awarded Gold for commitment to patient safety by the National Joint Registry, after successfully completing a national programme of local data audits.

The NJR monitors the performance of hip, knee, ankle, elbow and shoulder joint replacement procedures to improve clinical outcomes for the benefit of patients, but also to support and give performance feedback to orthopaedic clinicians and industry manufacturers.

The registry collects high-quality orthopaedic data in order to provide evidence to support patient safety, standards in quality of care, and overall value in joint replacement surgery. The ‘NJR Quality Data Provider’ certificate scheme was introduced to offer NHS and independent hospitals a blueprint for reaching high-quality standards relating to patient safety and to reward those who have met registry targets.

In order to achieve the Gold award, hospitals are required to meet 100% of a series of six ambitious targets during the audit period 2022/23. One of the targets which hospitals are required to complete is compliance with the NJR’s mandatory national audit aimed at assessing data completeness and quality within the registry. A further 33 Nuffield Health hospitals across England and Wales have also achieved the Gold award this time, based on submitting over 20,000 records.

The NJR Data Quality Audit compares the number of joint replacement procedures submitted to the registry to the number carried out and recorded in the local hospital Patient Administration System. The audit ensures that the NJR is collecting and reporting upon the most complete, accurate data possible across all hospitals performing joint replacement operations, including Nuffield Health Cardiff and Vale Hospitals . NJR targets also include having a high level of patients consenting for their details to be included in the registry so that they can be more easily contacted in future should the need arise.

Commenting, Melanie Webber-Maybank, Hospital Director at Nuffield Health Cardiff and Vale Hospitals, said:

“This is a fantastic achievement for our hard-working hospital teams, both our hard-working clinical teams and non-clinical administrative who collect and input many clinical records for the National Joint Registry. People who choose to have their joint care with Nuffield Health Cardiff and Vale Hospitals benefit from an experienced and expert clinical team. As recognised by the National Joint Registry, they receive connected physiotherapy and specialist rehabilitation care.

We fully support the National Joint Registry’s work in facilitating improvement in clinical outcomes for the benefit of joint replacement patients and we’re delighted to be awarded a Gold Award as an ‘NJR Quality Data Provider’, bringing our vision of creating healthier local communities to life.”

National Joint Registry Medical Director, Mr Tim Wilton, said:

“Congratulations to colleagues at Nuffield Health Cardiff and Vale Hospitals. The Quality Data Provider Award demonstrates the high standards being met towards ensuring compliance with the NJR and is often a reflection of strong departmental efforts to achieve such status.

As well as being a fundamental driver to inform improved quality of care for patients, registry data provides an important source of evidence for regulators, such as the Care Quality Commission, to inform their judgements about the quality of health services.”

Full details about the NJR’s Quality Data Provider certificate scheme can be found online at: www.njrcentre.org.uk.