HEALTH: Hip replacements a waste of cash

Unreliable hip replacements are not lasting long enough, causing pain and wasting money, according to the Consumers' Association. Only the oldest and cheapest models - a handful of the 60 models on the market - have been shown to last for a worthwhile length of time.

Operations to replace failed implants now made up about 11 per cent of all hip replacements in Britain, and some experts predict this figure could soon rise to 25 per cent. These "revision" operations are more complicated, more expensive and have a poorer success rate than the initial replacements, the Health Which? research found.

More than half the models on the market had been introduced since 1990, but only the oldest and cheapest implants had enough long-term evidence to support their use, it argued. However Health Which? claims the latest models made more money for manufacturers.