Knee arthroscopy surgery at Spire Clare Park Hospital

At Spire Clare Park Hospital, our team of orthopaedic (bone and muscle) surgeons can offer you a treatment and care plan that's personal to you and your needs. Our dedicated nurses and physiotherapists will provide expert aftercare to help you get the most from your operation.

We offer fast diagnosis to treatment time and easy booking with appointment times to suit you.

At Spire Clare Park Hospital, we have wide experience of performing knee arthroscopy in our high-quality facilities, including two operating theatres with laminar flow. These theatres regulate air flow to reduce the risk of infection.

The procedures offered to you will depend on your symptoms or condition. Some of our consultants perform microfracture – where they make small holes in your bones to stimulate cartilage growth.

Getting here

Spire Clare Park Hospital is a 10 minute taxi ride from Farnham station. Other public transport options are available. We have free on-site parking for you and your visitors.

Your consultations

For your appointments, you’ll meet your consultant in one of our 10 consultation rooms. All of our rooms are accessible, so there’s no need to worry about stairs if your knee is very painful.

If you haven’t been diagnosed yet, your consultant will do the following before a knee arthroscopy:

• Discuss what may have happened to cause your symptoms (eg a sports injury or fall)
• Ask about your medical history
• They may recommend using our advanced scanning, imaging and diagnostic technologies to look at your knee to help understand the cause of your pain or mobility issues

Your consultations give you an opportunity to discuss your needs and expectations from your surgery. We can then outline a treatment and care plan that’s tailored to you.

On the day

Before your procedure, you’ll meet your orthopaedic surgeon again and your anaesthetist. Depending on what you’ve agreed upon with your consultant, you’ll either have:

• A general anaesthetic so you’re asleep
• An epidural or spinal anaesthetic, when you can’t feel anything below your waist
• A local anaesthetic so you can’t feel your knee

If you’ve come with a friend or family member, they’re welcome to wait in our lounge or restaurant while you have your operation.

Your procedure

• Your surgeon will make two or more small incisions into your knee then pass the arthroscope (a thin, flexible, telescopic instrument with a light and a tiny video camera on the end) into your knee joint to view it
• Any damage to cartilage or ligaments will then be repaired, loose bone fragments or scar tissue removed or tissue samples collected if there’s inflammation

You can usually go home on the same day or the following day after a knee arthroscopy. Your consultant will discuss how the investigation or treatment went and whether they recommend further surgery.

You may feel some pain once the anaesthetic wears off, but don’t worry, your healthcare team will give you painkillers to help with this. How long the pain lasts and your recovery time depends on what your consultant needed to do during your procedure. If you’ve had any treatment, it may take longer than if you just had an investigation.

Although everybody’s different and you should always follow your consultant’s advice, here’s a typical recovery timeline for knee arthroscopy: