Written and maintained by CASRAI Editorial Board
Last updated
General information only, not medical advice. Questions about a personal operation belong with your surgeon or clinician.
The National Joint Registry (NJR) is the UK registry that records joint replacement operations (hip, knee, ankle, elbow and shoulder) so that outcomes, implants, surgeons and hospitals can be monitored. This page explains what it holds, which NJR output suits a patient, clinician or researcher, and how it differs from other national arthroplasty registries. Sources were read on 2026-11-07.
What the National Joint Registry is
The NJR records joint replacement procedures and has been monitoring outcomes for over 20 years. It is hosted by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP). Published comparisons of national registries describe it as covering England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man. “National joint registry” is also a generic phrase: other countries run their own national joint replacement registers (see the table below), but this page is about the UK NJR, the best-known use of the name.
Its stated uses, from the patient pages of the NJR Centre, are to monitor outcomes and patient safety, help people learn about implants and how long brands last, compare implants, surgeons and hospitals, and trace patients who received a given implant if safety concerns arise.
Who runs it and what it covers
- Procedures: hip, knee, ankle, elbow and shoulder joint replacement surgery.
- Volume: the NJR Centre reports that 278,457 joint procedures were submitted onto the registry in calendar year 2025.
- Consent: patients are asked for consent; the NJR Centre states that over 96 per cent agree, and that the registry holds around 4.6 million records.
- Reporting: the 23rd Annual Report covers 2025. The 2026 Annual Report and Annual Clinical Reports were published in September 2026, and an archive runs back to the 11th report (2014).
Where each NJR output lives
| If you are a… | Look for | What it offers |
|---|---|---|
| Patient | Patient Decision Support Tool | Risks and benefits for hip, knee and shoulder replacement |
| Patient | Surgeon and Hospital Profile (surgeonprofile.njrcentre.org.uk) | Surgeon and hospital outcomes; the data were last refreshed on 11 August 2026 |
| Patient | Patient information pages: access to your NJR data, national data opt-out, privacy notice | Your data rights and how to opt out |
| Researcher or analyst | Annual Report at reports.njrcentre.org.uk | Per-joint PDFs, full report, Welsh translation, one-page infographic; sections on Data Completeness and Quality, Hospital Performance and Implant Performance |
| Clinician or hospital | NJR Connect – Data Services; implant scanning interface; surgeon noticeboard | Feedback and reports on the unit’s own submissions |
How to find and use it
- Start at the NJR Centre website (njrcentre.org.uk), which has separate routes for patients and for clinicians.
- For published results, open the NJR Reports site and choose the joint, then the report section you need (Data Completeness and Quality, Hospital Performance or Implant Performance).
- To look up a surgeon or hospital, use the Surgeon and Hospital Profile website linked from the NJR Centre.
- To weigh the risks and benefits of a hip, knee or shoulder replacement, use the Patient Decision Support Tool, and discuss the output with your surgeon.
- Clinicians and hospitals use NJR Connect – Data Services for feedback and reports; its entry point is in the clinician section of the NJR Centre site, and the Service Desk handles enquiries.
What a joint registry can and cannot tell you
A joint registry records operations and later events such as revision (a further operation on the implant). That is why registries are strong on implant survival and weak on questions they were not built to measure.
What is the regret rate for knee replacements?
The NJR sources read for this page do not report a regret rate. A registry’s core measure is revision, which is not the same as dissatisfaction. Patient-reported outcome measures are a separate instrument family; see our guide to patient-reported outcome measures and hospital quality and the KOOS knee questionnaire.
What is knee joint replacement surgery?
It is an operation in which a damaged knee joint is replaced with an implant, and it is one of the joint procedures the NJR records. For the surrounding specialty, see what orthopedics is. Whether surgery is appropriate for a particular person is a clinical decision.
Which country is best for knee replacement surgery?
Registries do not rank countries. A published comparison of national and regional arthroplasty registries found that they define revision differently, so their figures are not like-for-like. Compare registries descriptively, and use each one’s own definitions.
Is a hip or knee replacement harder to recover from?
Recovery is not what an implant registry measures, and the sources used here do not compare it. Recovery depends on the individual; raise it with the treating team.
Strengths and limits
- Strengths: long-running national collection, high patient consent, implant-level performance reporting, and the ability to trace patients who received a given implant if a safety concern arises.
- Limits: revision-based outcomes do not capture satisfaction or regret; the NJR does not count debridement with implant retention as a revision, which affects comparison with registries that do; and any surgeon or hospital comparison is only as good as data completeness, which is why the Annual Report has a dedicated section on it.
Alternatives and other national registries
| Registry | What the sources say |
|---|---|
| NJR (England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man) | Does not count debridement with implant retention as a revision |
| Australian Orthopaedic Association National Joint Replacement Registry (AOANJRR) | Splits revision into major total, major partial and minor; its revision risk tables combine all three |
| Finnish Arthroplasty Register | Counts soft tissue procedures such as lavage and debridement for infection as revisions |
| Swedish Knee Arthroplasty Register and Swedish Hip Arthroplasty Register | Started in 1975 and 1979 respectively |
| Michigan Arthroplasty Registry Collaborative Quality Initiative (MARCQI, regional) | Counts secondary patellar resurfacing as a revision |
The revision-definition differences come from a comparison of knee implant revision data in registry reports from 2016 to 2018; check each registry’s current report for its present definitions.
FAQ
Who runs the National Joint Registry?
The registry is hosted by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) and published through the NJR Centre.
Can I opt out of having my data used?
The NJR Centre lists a national data opt-out and a page on accessing your NJR data among its patient routes.
Where do I find the latest report?
The NJR Reports site holds the 23rd Annual Report (covering 2025) and an archive back to the 11th report (2014).
Sources
- NJR Centre, njrcentre.org.uk, read 2026-11-07.
- NJR Reports, reports.njrcentre.org.uk, read 2026-11-07.
- NJR Centre patient information, njrcentre.org.uk/patients, read 2026-11-07.
- Summary of knee implant one, three, five, and 10-year revision risk reported by national and regional arthroplasty registries, PMC7265088, read 2026-11-07.
