Home, No Follow-Up: Are we ignoring the significance of unplanned clinic attendances, re-admission and mortality in the first 12 months post-operatively in over 65 year olds’ hip fractures treated with DHS fixation?

80,000 hip fractures are admitted to UK hospitals annually (Royal College of Physicians, 2016). Little is known about 12-month post-operative re-admission, unplanned clinic attendance and mortality. We aimed to determine if there is a role for routine follow-up for certain strata of our hip fracture population treated by Dynamic Hip Screw (DHS) Fixation based on unplanned attendance to clinics and whether it is possible to stratify risk of re-admission, re-operation and mortality within the first 12 months post-operatively. A prospectively collated single centre database of patients >65 years old undergoing DHS fixation for traumatic hip fractures between August 2007 and February 2011 was retrospectively analysed. Pre-operative data regarding patient demographics, mobility, residence and co-morbidities were collected. Post-operative (1, 4, 12 months) place of residence, mobility status, unplanned attendance to an orthopaedic clinic with symptoms relating to the respective limb, re-admission to hospital and mortality was collated. Regression analysis was performed (SPSS, IBM Corporation, version 24). P