Following the establishment of regional Major Trauma Networks in England in 2012, there were concerns that pressures regarding resource allocation in Major Trauma Centres (MTCs) may have a detrimental impact on the care of patients with hip fractures in these hospitals. This study aimed to compare outcomes in hip fracture care between MTCs and trauma units (TUs).

National Hip Fracture Database data was extracted from 01/01/2015 to 31/12/2022 for all hospitals in England. Outcome measures included perioperative medical and physiotherapy assessments, time to surgery, consultant supervision in theatre, Best Practice Tariff (BPT) compliance, discharge to original residence, and mortality. Data was pooled and weighted for MTCs and remaining hospitals (TUs).

A total of 487,089 patients with hip fractures were included from 167 hospitals (23 MTCs and 144 TUs). MTCs achieved marginally higher rates of orthogeriatrician assessment within 72 hours of admission (91.1% vs 90.4%, p<0.001) and mobilisation out of bed by first postoperative day (81.9% vs 79.7%, p<0.001). A lower proportion of patients underwent surgery by the day after admission in MTCs (65.2% vs 69.7%, p<0.001). However, there was significantly higher consultant surgeon and anaesthetist supervision rates during surgery in MTCs (71.8% vs 61.6%, p<0.001). There was poorer compliance with BPT criteria in MTCs (57.3% vs 60.4%, p<0.001), and proportionately fewer MTC patients were discharged to their original residence (63.5% vs 60.4%, p<0.001). There was no difference between MTCs and TUs in 30-day mortality (6.8% vs 6.8%, p=0.825).

This study demonstrates that MTCs have greater difficulty in providing prompt surgery to hip fracture patients. However, their marginally superior perioperative care outcomes appear to compensate for this, as their mortality rates are similar to TUs. These findings suggest that the regionalisation of major trauma in England has not significantly compromised the overall care of hip fracture patients.

Fracture neck of femur (NOF) in elderly is a serious debilitating injury and has been presenting in increasing proportions. Some of these patients are unfortunate to come back with a contralateral injury. We attempted at looking into the incidence of these episodes in a cohort attending our trust and compared various parameters

We retrospectively assessed our hospital theatre data for fracture NOF in patients over 60 years in the last 3 years. We reviewed their demographics, mode of injury, time to contralateral injury, incidence of any other insufficiency fracture, operative procedure and any complications.

There were 1435 patients who underwent surgery for fracture NOF over the 3 years. Forty-three of these had bilateral fractures. Females had 3 times more incidence as compared to males; average age at first injury was 84 years and at contralateral side was 85 years. Time between the two injuries ranged from 20 to 855 days (Median 242 days). Almost equal incidence of intra / extracapsular fractures was noted. Contralateral fracture pattern (Intra vs Extracapsular) for the was similar in 34 patients. Twelve patients had an associated insufficiency fracture.

Fracture NOF in elderly is a rising epidemic. Only 3% of these patients suffer a contralateral fracture NOF which usually occurs within a year. The fracture pattern is frequently similar to the first fracture in and hence similar implants have been used. Only 21% patients were on bone protection medications. It is rather difficult to identify this small group and hence prevent a second contralateral incident.