National Joint Registry at British Orthopaedic Association Congress

Published: 05 Oct 2023

Liverpool, September 2023

Deirdra Taylor, National Joint Registry (NJR) 

“Each year the NJR launches our Annual Report at the British Orthopaedic Association (BOA) Congress event, which is attended by over 2,000 surgeon members. This year the programme was created around the theme of Sustainable Systems, with three days of lectures, debates and discussions, demonstrations and exhibition features. Our report is always launched within our own scheduled 90-minute plenary programme of NJR presentations, this year on day two, which addresses key areas of our work each year, as well as the highlights and key messages of the report.

We had invited surgeon delegates to join us for an early commemorative bacon-butty breakfast at the start of our programme this year, which focused on the impact of the past two decades of work of the NJR and the registry benefits for all our stakeholders. With a packed hall, Elaine Young, Director of Operations for the NJR, set the scene with an impactful overview of our key achievements and the session also included four presentations with a patient-associated focus, two of which were films that we had recorded and edited in advance, which were all very well-received.

Aligning with the congress theme of sustainability was a presentation given by one of the two sustainability research fellows the NJR is supporting, who talked about his work in reviewing the issue of unnecessary waste in the orthopaedic sector and its impact on climate change, to highlight growing concerns and recommendations for change with this audience who can help to make a difference. The NJR session was closed by our Chair, Professor Sir Paul Curran, who addressed some of the exciting future developmental work we plan.

Each year we also design and build an exhibition stand for the BOA congress exhibition hall, with a range of graphics and visual features demonstrating our work. Since this is our 20th anniversary, we had a big and bold commemorative information area featuring our new logo and a twenty-year timeline of the significant milestones in the development of the NJR. Along with members the NJR management team, our NJR compliance officers were also present on the stand to support and advise surgeons on the best ways to navigate the dynamic features within their annual clinical reports, which were also launched during the event on our reporting network system, NJR Connect – Data Services.

Our NJR mascot, Wenlock, had also made the journey up in the finery of his top hat and bow-tie, bringing along his favourite book: ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (‘..knees and toes’) and helping us to share some commemorative ‘20’ pens, notebooks and tins of mints. Our large stand screen imparted information on our key services through the transmission of a loop-video and we also provided surgeons with a whiteboard feedback feature, to enable them to tell us what they think about NJR services that we have provided for them over the past twenty years, and what they might like to see us do over the next 20. We also held a well-attended meeting with our manufacturer stakeholders, to review our reporting services and to collaborate on ideas about how these could be extended.

We turned the NJR stand into a filming area on one quieter afternoon when the surgeons were in other sessions, to capture video of our key executive team talking about the work they are involved with for the NJR, to support the creation of a suite of further engaging material for our website and will soon be posting more footage online. Many smaller meetings were also held by NJR team members with a multitude of NJR stakeholders, maximising the face-to-face opportunity the event provided in our otherwise now quite virtually-driven world.

The icing on the cake for the NJR was the highlight of Tim Wilton, NJR Medical Director, being awarded a prestigious BOA Honorary Fellowship on the last day.

All in all, the BOA Congress was a very worthwhile event activity for the NJR with much interaction and interest from surgeons, clinicians and manufacturers, across the event, on our information stand and at our plenary session.

For more information on the NJR and its work, go to www.njrcentre.org.uk.