King’s pilots digital prehab for hip and knee replacement patients

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has launched a digital prehabilitation trial for patients awaiting hip and knee replacement surgery, aiming to improve outcomes, reduce cancellations and support elective recovery.

The year-long pilot, which started in May 2026, is being delivered at Orpington Hospital in partnership with telehealth company QuestPrehab.

A total of 100 orthopaedic patients currently on waiting lists have been recruited and provided with eight to 10 weeks of personalised digital preparation before their operations.

Through the QuestPrehab platform, patients will receive tailored exercise programmes, nutritional guidance, psychological support and sleep optimisation tools designed to help them prepare for surgery before admission.

Dr Swinda Esprit, clinical director for surgery and anaesthetics at Orpington and Princess Royal University Hospitals, which are part of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Prehabilitation is not an ‘add-on’ – it’s a critical part of improving surgical outcomes and protecting elective capacity.

“By trialling a digital prehab model, we can support patients to become physically and mentally ready for surgery in the comfort of their home. This approach aligns clinical quality with operational resilience, which is exactly what elective services need right now.”

In the run-up to their surgery, patients will use the QuestPrehab app and web platform to follow personalised exercise plans, receive nutrition and hydration advice, access tools to manage anxiety and prepare mentally for surgery.

The programme also tracks patient progress and engagement, helping clinical teams understand who is ready for surgery and who may need extra support.

Professor Tara Rampal, founder and chief executive at QuestPrehab, said: “Recent guidance for hip and knee surgery highlights enhanced recovery pathways and perioperative optimisation as key levers to achieve best-practice lengths of stay close to zero or one day for joint replacement patients.

“By creating a consistent pool of surgery-ready patients ready to accept operation dates and reducing avoidable clinical cancellations, the trial is directly aligned with national work on theatre productivity and the National Perioperative Care Programme.

“Our digital model is scalable and cost-efficient, making wide-scale adoption of digital prehab possible. It doesn’t require any modifications to pre-existing infrastructure, processes, patient pathways, or systems, so can be easily inserted into any healthcare provider.”

In November 2024, London-based HealthTech startup QuestPrehab announced a partnership with NHS Providers to help NHS trusts learn about the benefits of digital prehabilitation.

The partnership was intended to help NHS trusts across England explore the use of QuestPrehab’s digital prehabilitation platform.