ODEP provides surgeons with ratings on the quality and longevity of performance and safety data available for orthopaedic implants, to inform their decisions on which implants to use with their patients.  

Surgeons are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the ODEP ratings of the implants they use, and to assure themselves that implants maintain their ODEP ratings over time. Implants with no ODEP rating, or only Pre-entry status, or the loss of an implant’s ODEP rating should cause a surgeon to review the suitability of the implant for future patients. 

Surgeons contributing to the NJR are able to assess their use of ODEP-rated implants through the NJR Consultant Level Report.  Surgeons not contributing to the NJR wishing to analyse the ODEP rating of implants within their practice are able to make this assessment by contacting us using Contact Us.  

There are some important points regarding how the use of ODEP-rated implants is assessed and reported at surgeon level:  

• The ratings reported are those for the implant at the time of the surgery
• Pre-Entry is not an ODEP benchmark, it is simply an indication that the product has been registered with ODEP
• Pre-Entry A* is a benchmark which indicates that the product has been rigorously assessed and is being monitored in Beyond Compliance (but this does not imply that satisfactory outcomes are yet available)
• An implant will lose its ODEP rating when its progress through the ODEP ratings has lapsed, it has been withdrawn by the manufacturer, or where the data submitted is unacceptable
• Surgeons may feel that the data about ODEP ratings of implants that they use seem incorrect.  This is often due to the precise variants they use having a different rating from a similar variant.  The discrepancy can also be caused by the way in which an implant is used.   These uncertainties can usually be resolved by identifying the precise variant on the ODEP website.

When an implant is going through “Beyond Compliance” (“BC”) it is awarded a Pre-entry A* rating. These products are being watched closely by independent Beyond Compliance Rapporteurs.  If you are one of these surgeons you will have signed up to the obligations that come with being a BC surgeon which include reporting any problems and attending User Group meetings when possible.

Surgeons using BC implants take on responsibility of helping to introduce a new implant. This carries a number of obligations for surgeons:

• They must be registered as having been trained in the use of this implant by the champion surgeon / manufacturer
• They must be fully understanding of the BC ethos and what it hopes to achieve
• They must make sure all their patients have signed the BC consent form and informed BC that this is the case (most commonly via an automated pop-up box on the NJR data entry system).