A MALTON woman has become the first person from the town to have a hip replacement and go home in the same day.

Bridlington Hospital, which is part of York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust that also runs Malton Hospital, has become one of a few units in the country able to provide hip replacements for selected day case patients. Until recently patients would routinely stay in hospital for five days following a hip replacement.

The Bridlington team reached this breakthrough after advances in patient information, anaesthetics, medication and physiotherapy over the past few years have steadily seen patients recovering more quickly and needing to spend less time in hospital.

In February, Susan Francis, from Malton, was put on the urgent list for a left hip replacement, with the view to replacing her right hip once the left one had fully healed.

Susan was lucky enough to have her second hip operation in April and to have the surgery and be discharged all in the same day.

She said: “I’m so grateful to the orthopaedic service at Bridlington - it was fantastic.

“Both times I had so much support from the orthopaedic team on Kent Ward who got me up and walking as soon as possible.

“After being discharged on the same day the second time, I received a follow-up phone call the next day making sure I was okay and again the following morning.

“I no longer have any pain, and my aim is to become stronger so I can swim and ride a bike again, something I am very much looking forward to doing.”

David Cash, consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Bridlington Hospital, said: “The team here are very proud to be able to offer same day discharge following a hip replacement to residents of North Yorkshire.

“A few other hospitals in the UK have started discharging selected patients on the day of surgery, and we felt that we were ready to offer that service in Bridlington.

“Patients often prefer to be at home and increasingly have been asking whether they could go home on the day of surgery. We have noticed over the last few years of service improvements that some patients didn’t really need to stay and so this was the logical next step.”