The Hip and Knee scores developed at the University of Oxford

Commonly known as the Oxford Hip and Knee scores (OHS and OKS) these two scores were developed by senior academics at the Health Services Research Unit, Professor Ray Fitzpatrick and Dr Jill Dawson, with long-term collaboration by surgical colleagues at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, at Oxford.

The Oxford Hip and Knee scores are 12-item patient reported questionnaires with demonstrably reliable, valid and responsive measurement properties for assessing outcomes of Hip and Knee surgery.

Some of the attributes of the Oxford Hip and Knee scores are:

• a simple scoring and summing system provides an overall scale for assessing outcome of either hip or knee interventions
• the questionnaire is completed by the patient, independent of the clinical team / surgeon
• the questionnaire can be completed anywhere, can be delivered by post to patients homes or deployed by various electronic platforms such as web or PDA. This makes follow-up of large study populations much more feasible (and cheaper) than conducting clinical assessments, requiring a return visit to the hospital.

Although primarily designed for assessing health outcomes from hip and knee joint replacement surgery, the OHS/OKS questionnaires have been used to assess other interventions aimed at improving the condition of a hip or knee joint. Examples of other non-surgical therapy studies employing the OKS and OHS include physiotherapy or drug therapies and have be employed in other contexts, such as audit. It is recommended that parties interested in using the OHS and OKS for such non-surgical study applications should discuss their use of the questionnaire with the authors. Please communicate this to Isis Innovation when requesting the licence.

The Oxford Hip and Knee scores have recently been adopted by the Department of Health in the UK as the template for the assessment of some 120,000 Hip and Knee operations per year by the National Heath Service. This forms part of the nationwide Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROMs) program launched in April this year.

What our customers are saying

“Oxford Hip and Knee Scores will be at the forefront of orthopaedic care in Nuffield Health and the resulting information will ensure that Nuffield Health develops care pathways that achieve the best possible results for the patients.”
Dr Andrew Jones, Group Medical Director of Nuffield Health.

Using the Hip and Knee questionnaires developed at Oxford

A licence to use the Hip and / or Knee scores developed at Oxford can be obtained by completing the online licence request form »

If you would like further information about the questionnaires you can also contact Isis Innovation at healthoutcomes@isis.ox.ac.uk or +44 (0)1865 280857.

Advice on the use of, or interpretation of data from the questionnaire is available on request.