Lancashire Teaching Hospital’s Major Trauma Specialist Physiotherapist and ARC NWC intern, Lewis Navarro, is ‘Evaluating recovery following femoral periprosthetic fractures.’

Lewis’s research project aims to address a national priority to help provide a basis for improved targeted care and education for patients following any femoral orthopaedic surgery, particularly those from increased socially deprived backgrounds, healthcare planning and provide basis for future targeted research to improve patient care pathways for this cohort.

“Through my experience and exposure to patients from socially deprived backgrounds and the unfavourable influences it has on outcomes in this patient cohort, I had completed service evaluations and a literature review to confirm this anecdotal evidence. Evidence of higher levels of social deprivation links with worse outcomes and poorer injury and healthcare experiences in most orthopaedic injuries and this was something I wanted to capture from the patient’s perspective when recovering from femoral periprosthetic fracture.”

Lewis’ research aligns with the ARC’s ‘Person Centred Complex Care’ and ‘Health and Care Across the Life-course’ themes of ARC NWC, in addition to the IMPlementation and Capacity building Team (IMPaCT).

He is also keen to highlight the importance of involving the public in his research project: “Public and patient involvement was paramount in the design and building of this project. Public advisers have inputted into ensuring the research question is relevant and the design is appropriate, whilst patients with lived experience aided in designing the interview ‘topic guide’ used in the research project.”

When asked about the implementation of his project Lewis adds: “The ambition is to implement the findings locally by providing basic education to ‘high-risk patients’ whilst also contributing toward ongoing review for best practice for this patient cohort.” Learn more about Lewis’s project by downloading his poster here.