The patient-doctor relationship remains the bedrock of modern medicine. With significant current political pressures this has never been more important. Lay input is now an integral part of the development of guidelines, patient pathways and commissioning. The British Orthopaedic Association was proactive in this regard and in March 2004 the BOA Patient Liaison Group (PLG) was formed, comprising lay members and orthopaedic surgeons. It was considered invaluable to have advice and input from patients when the BOA was planning orthopaedic and trauma care, guidelines and when responding to changes in healthcare systems, including training and education. The PLG meets at the BOA three times each year and provides a regular report for BOA Council meetings, which the Lay Chairman attends as an ex officio member. However, the committee remains highly active on several fronts throughout the year strongly supporting trauma and orthopaedic patients and surgeons.　

Appointment of Medical members
Interested members of the BOA will asked to submit an application and successful applicants will be invited to join the Group. Of the three medical members, at least one will be a Member of Council of the British Orthopaedic Association. The Vice-chair will be nominated by Council from those Council members.

Terms of Office:
The Chair and Vice-chair will hold office for three years, beginning at the first meeting of a year.  The Chair will be elected from among the lay members by ballot at the final meeting of the previous three year term.  The vice-chair will be nominated by Council for a similar period, but staggered by one year. The Chair shall be invited to attend Council as an ex-officio member. 

Members may serve for three years with the option of extending the appointment for a further one or two years except that the Chair who should be able to complete their maximum term of office if so elected. At the completion of a term of office or membership, a year must elapse before that person becomes eligible for re-election.  All lay-members who step down from attending regular meetings may elect to stay on as corresponding members. 

The Corresponding Membership may be formed from retired attending members,  appointees-in-waiting, members whose circumstances change making it impractical to attend meetings and members for whom the travel to the BOA Offices is not a practical option. All corresponding members may attend meetings and have the option of becoming an attending members  should their circumstances permit.
Members may be removed by a majority vote of the PLG, subject to confirmation by Council, or by Council itself.
Implicit in accepting membership of the PLG is acknowledgement that issues discussed in PLG meetings, or any other BOA meeting to which a member may be invited, are to treated as confidential.

Meetings
There shall be a minimum of three meetings in each year, not including working parties or conferences. Meetings will normally be held at the BOA offices. It may occasionally be necessary for the PLG to hold telephone conferences.

Accountability
The PLG will report to and be accountable to the Council of the British Orthopaedic Association. No member of the group is authorised to act as a spokesperson for the BOA without prior authorisation.

Annual Review
The PLG must provide an annual report of its past activities with proposals for the following year. Council will review the annual report. This report will be posted on the PLG's web page

Expenses
Travel and subsistence costs for members of the PLG will be met in accordance with the usual Association procedures. No other fees are payable.

April 2013

 

Guidance For Older Patients With Hip Fractures 18.3.13

Inappropriate Adverts 18.01.13

Patient Admission to Discharge Pathway 5.01.13

The Prevention of Blood Clots 17.12.12

Hygiene Wound Care Expectations Of Orthopaedic Patients - 31.10.12

Access to healthcare 15.8.12

Child Orthopaedic Patient Expectations and Responsibilities 3.7.12

Expectations of Elective Orthopaedic Patients 3.7.12

Expectations of Orthopaedic patients who need an orthosis 3.7.12

Expectations of Trauma Orthopaedic Patients 4.7.12

Patient Hopes and Expectations in Foot and Ankle Surgery

Responsibilities of the Orthopaedic Patient

TKR Patient Advice
2012 BOA Congress Report -PLG

Chairman Report 2004-2008

Chairman Report 2008-2010

Chairman Report 2010-11

Chairman Report 2012

Common Hand Conditions

​		​	Nick Welch (Lay Chair) joined the PLG in 2006 after accepting early retirement. In November 2011 was elected as Lay-Chair. He had spent 36 years in the Pharmaceutical Business, working in training, sales and marketing, throughout the EU. Working in this industry has given him an invaluable insight into the NHS. As well as being a Derbyshire LINK Champion, a Derbyshire PCT Lay Consultant, and a member of his GP Practice PPG he has been involved with the LTC commissioning group and the recent major trauma review.  He is on the Management Committee of his local 50+ Forum.​
​		​	Don McBride (Medical Vice Chair) is a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon specialising in Foot and Ankle Surgery at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire. He trained in Glasgow, North Staffs and Oswestry. He is a Past President of the British Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society and is currently a Council Member of that society, the European Foot and Ankle Society and the British Orthopaedic Association. He was the orthopaedic member of the Guidelline Development Group for the recent NICE VTE guideline and remains a member of the Topic Expert Group for Quality Standards in VTE with NICE. He is a Clinical Advisor for complaints for the Health Service Ombudsman
​		​	Terry Garrett was one of the founder members of the BOA Patient Liaison Group set up in 2004 and is now a corresponding member.  In recent years he has been actively involved as a parish councillor, in local hospital driving and in patient groups at a nearby GP surgery and at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford. He is a Foundation Trust member of the RNOH Stanmore. He graduated in mathematics from Cambridge and worked in the civil service on scientific policy, exchanges and administration.  After retirement he headed the International Affairs Department at the Royal Society. He was awarded CMG and CBE for overseas government service which included assignments in Russia, Austria and Germany.​
​		​	Jon Mutimer is a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon specialising in hip and knee surgery based in Cheltenham. He trained in the Bristol region as well as in Oxford, Australia and a fellowship in New Zealand. He has research interests in measuring polyethylene wear in total hip replacements, the results of which may help future hip replacements last longer and reduce the burden of revision hip surgery. Locally he is involved with the Musculoskeletal Programme Board reporting to the new Commissioning Groups responsible for organising the commissioning of care in the region. He is also actively involved with the selection and teaching of orthopaedic trainees in the region.​
​		​	Judith Fitch has just joined as a lay member of PLG. She has many years of experience in high technology marketing, sales and communications in the USA, Germany, Austria and the UK. Most recently she delivered internal communications within NHS and academic environments.   Having played a major role in communicating the benefits of technology implementation across the NHS, Judith has a passion for quality patient care. In her spare time Judith is a moderator on a knee and hip replacement forum coaching patients through the joint replacement journey. ​
Steve Roger​		​	​
​		​	Bob Smith is a retiree from the medical devices industry and for the past 13 years has been a volunteer and representative on various patients’ groups in NHS Bedfordshire and East of England SHA’s Planned Care Programme.   He is the lay member on the National Hip Fracture Database (NHFD) Steering Group and a member of the National Osteoporosis Society.   He was the team leader for the non-active implantables group for the Global Medical Device Nomenclature (GMDN).​
		​	​Derek Twigg's career has been largely in aircraft engineering, starting as an aircraft apprentice (brat) in the RAF in 1953 and ending with the Ministry of Defence in various aircraft project offices. He retired in 1996 but keeps busy with singing, house maintenance/renovation and voluntary work. His orthopaedic history is confined to left and right total hip replacements at York District Hospital.  It was there that he joined the local orthopaedic support group where past and future patients received advice and support from invited speakers, nurses and fellow sufferers/operatees.
		​	Josephine Fox has been a registered nurse since 1962 and has worked almost exclusively in orthopaedic theatres with a specific interest in joint replacements. Having worked with McKee and Watson-Farrar in the early sixties, she then went on to work in a number of other notable hospitals including Princess Alexandra Hospital, Harlow and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore. She has been published numerous times in the Nursing Press over the years and in 2007 took over the BoneSmart.org patient forum as nurse advisor and lead administrator. From BoneSmart, a passion to improve the patient experience of hip and knee replacement has become paramount and membership of the PLG will be a privileged opportunity to further that.
		​	​ Jeremy Ridge qualified and trained in London, moving to Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, to take up a consultant post in 1996. His practice is that of the generalist, initially establishing shoulder and foot surgery whilst continuing with his main activity of lower limb arthroplasty and supervision of trainees.  He firmly believes there is a use for a generalist within modern orthopaedic practice especially in a small or medium sized unit. He became involved with the Department of Health “Action on Orthopaedics” program and was further involved in the development of the Musculoskeletal Services document.  He was elected founder member of the British Orthopaedic Directors Society Committee. He has been closely involved in liaison with primary care. He was involved in the establishment of a local MSK service and remain a salaried Consultant member of the team. He is fully aware of the current pressures that face the Orthopaedic service during the most major transformation of the N.H.S. in living memory.
​		​	Margaret Hughes retired on health grounds in 2003 and immediately recovered. She was an Area Manager for the Office for National Statistics in the North West. She has had 23 orthopaedic procedures including multiple joint implants  and has experienced many changes over time in the health service. She joined her Local Patient and Public Involvement Forum in 2003 and became Vice Chair of the Acute Trust and the Primary Care Trust some little time later. She is now actively involved both nationally and regionally and locally as lay representative in health and is a strong advocate of Patient and Public Involvement in all aspects of health and social care particularly in Clinical Audit.
​		​	​ Sue Eckstein has been a lecturer in Clinical and Biomedical Ethics at Brighton and Sussex Medical School since July 2007.  She came to BSMS from King's College London where she was Director of Programme Development at the Centre of Medical Law and Ethics, specialising in research ethics.  Her main interests are research ethics, medical ethics in the developing world and medical humanities. From June 2013, she will be taking on the editorship of the BMJ journal, Medical Humanities.  Her PhD research was in autobiographical fiction - the contractual understanding of the relationship between the author, reader and those written about, the "ownership" of memory and the tension between "truth" and "fiction.  She is the author of four plays that have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and two novels - The Cloths of Heaven (Myriad Editions 2009) and Interpreters (Myriad Editions 2011).  She blogs - mostly about being an amputee - at http://sueeckstein.wordpress.com/
			​ Ruth Reavley had only had contact with orthopaedics specialists having broken her arm aged 13. However, following the birth of her daughter who was diagnosed with “clicky hips” 1994, and her son with a complex bundle of orthopaedic issues including proximal focal femoral deficiency and one slow-growing leg, in 1995.  Her life since has been characterised by frequent and regular Orthopaedic Centre visits, seeing first paediatric and now adults services surgeons and physiotherapists, and by less frequent but usually more stressful unscheduled Accident and Emergency visits for broken bones. For 7 years a Member of the Patient and Public Involvement Network, at Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Oxford (with a particular brief for paediatric service provision issues there), she was pleased to be elected to the BOA PLG in 2007.  Now a “corresponding member”, she contributes from the perspectives of both a mother of NHS orthopaedic service user, and as an adult NHS orthopaedic service-user herself.
​			​ Keith Thames joined the PLG this year after retiring from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) in 2012. Following an injury on duty he ceased operation duties and joined the MPS Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate, working in the field of disability, helping the MPS to meet its obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act, in the work place and with respect to service provision. Later with the introduction of the Equality Act 2010 he has advised on general equality issues, in particular quality assuring Equality Impact Assessments. Since retirement he has returned to the MPS one day a week in a voluntary role. His interest in orthopaedics are personal, following a hip resurfacing procedure a few years ago.

21st June 2013

22nd November 2013