A study, published in The Bone & Joint Journal, external, looked in detail at the effect of the pandemic on the numbers of joint (hip, knee, shoulder, elbow, and ankle) replacement surgeries carried out in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Data from 2019 to 2022 showed almost three quarters of a year of planned operations – 71.6% of 2019 activity and 158,994 joint replacements – had been lost.

This gap continues to increase and therefore the recovery from this deficit has not started. Knee, shoulder, and ankle surgery have been affected more severely than hip and elbow surgery.

The research concluded that returning to pre-pandemic levels will not tackle the backlog, and even with rapid expansion, “it will take many years, if not decades, to fix this joint replacement crisis”.