At the BSCOS AGM in Norwich, 2019, the membership voted in favour of a programme for BSCOS to establish guidelines for the management of common children’s orthopaedic conditions. The guides should be consensus driven, not prescriptive and it is anticipated that they will contribute to reducing unjustifiable idiosyncratic variation in practice and might also support appraisal, the GIRFT process and promote education.

Consensus Steering Groups have been created for three areas of practice where consensus might be achieved most easily, namely:

  • Management of DDH before 3 months old.
  • Early management of osteo-articular infection in children.
  • Management of clubfoot in the neonatal period.


The process will follow a Delphi approach. For the history and application of the Delphi process see the links below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_method

https://www.healthknowledge.org.uk/public-health-textbook/research-methods/1c-health-care-evaluation-health-care-assessment/use-delphi-methods

The process will be as follows: -

  1. The steering group meets to brainstorm and agree a management guide for the specified condition.
  2. The literature is checked to ensure there is no evidence conflicting the proposed guide.
  3. The guide is circulated to BSCOS members with a series of questions to survey and score using “degree of agreement”.
  4. The group refines the guide depending on feedback from membership
  5. The refined guide is recirculated for further scoring
  6. A “widely accepted” guide is developed and published.


Progress and agreed statements will be reported here on the BSCOS website.

For any queries regarding the process or the groups please contact consensus@bscos.org.uk

Clubfoot Consensus Steering Group

Guy Atherton
Jose Blanco
Rachel Buckingham
Naomi Davis
Vicki Easton
Neeraj Garg
Yael Gelfer
Anna Peek
Rohan Rajan
Sally Tennant
Amanda Trees
Denise Watson
Elizabeth Wright

DDH Consensus Steering Group

Alex Aarvold
Aidan Cosgrove
Sam Double
Christine Douglas
Kirsten Elliott
Sandeep Hemmadi
Jo Hicks
Annie Hurley
Julia Judd
Marcos Katchburian
Angie Lee
Claudia Maizen
James Metcalfe
Sarah Paterson
Robin Paton
Daniel Perry
Assad Qureshi
Mohamed Sabouni
Rebecca Tate
Simon Thomas
Dan Westacott

Musculoskeletal Infection Steering Group

Alwyn Abraham
Clare Carpenter
Jo Dartnell
Laura Deriu
Philip Henman
Colin Holton
Mark Latimer
Janet McCaul
Piers Mitchell
Ramanathan Natarajan
Anish Sanghrajka
Krishna Vemulapalli

ITW

Yael Gelfer
Jennifer Harris Anne McNee Christine Douglas Sarah Dewhurst Amanda Trees Mia Dunkley Laura Deriu Alpesh Kothari John Cashman Derfel Williams Jonathan Wright