![[ image: width=150]](/olmedia/55000/images/_58538_spiers150.jpg)
![image: [ Over 4,000 patients are thought to have been affected ]](/olmedia/55000/images/_58538_hippain300.JPG)
The announcement came after bosses from 3M Healthcare met the Health Secretary Frank Dobson.
The company had already promised to pay for operations needed to replace any faulty hips.
A company statement read: "These operations may be carried out either in a BUPA hospital or an NHS hospital if the patient prefers.
"The company commitment also extends to life-long follow-up of patients implanted with this device."
3M has also supplied a list of hospitals supplied with the faulty hip replacement.
More than 4,000 people are thought to have been given the artificial joint and doctors have begun contacting them to establish if they need new operations.
The artificial hips were used between August 1991 and March 1997.
The company's medical director, Dr Richard Spiers, says he hopes the operations can be undertaken quickly.
Dr Spiers said: "We certainly want to deal with it rapidly, for the best benefit of the patients."
No need to panic
Artificial hips should last for around 20 years. But the faulty 3M 'capital' hip has been found to work lose from its 'cement' fitting and eat into healthy bone.
The highest number of 3M Capital implants, 515, were fitted at Lancaster Moor Hospital, Lancaster. This was followed by St Mary's, Newport, on the Isle of Wight with 504, the Royal Oldham, Greater Manchester, 292, and Southampton General 272.
Despite the obvious concerns of those who received the artificial joint, Ian Lowden, an orthopaedic surgeon, says there is no need to panic.
![[ image: width=150]](/olmedia/55000/images/_58538_lowden2150.jpg)
"The first thing to say is that it's not an emergency," he said.
"There is time to get patients up to the clinics and get X-rays and discuss with them whether they've got symptoms and whether something needs to be done or not."
The 3M 'capital' hip was one of the cheaper models on the market and only 2% of all hip patients received them in the period in which they were on sale.
The estimated cost to the manufacturers of replacing patients' hips in private hospitals is around £20m.
Unlike new drugs, which only get a license after clinical trials, there is presently no mandatory system for approving medical devices, such as artificial hips, before they go on sale.
But that will change in June, when an EC directive comes into force and companies have to prove that their products work.
The 3M list
In Wales, 134 people are thought to have been fitted with 3M Capital hip implants. East Glamorgan Hospital, Pontypridd, was supplied with 75, and Gwynedd Hospital, in Bangor, received 59.
In Scotland, between 50 and 60 implants were supplied. The Scottish Office said they went to Gartnavel Hospital, Glasgow, Queen Margaret, Dunfermline; Princess Margaret Rose, Edinburgh; and Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy. Other hospitals have been alerted to look through their files.
A spokesman for the Department of Health in Northern Ireland said it was "very unlikely" that any people had been fitted with 3M Capital implants in Ulster hospitals.
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3M UK
Medical Devices Agency
Department of Health
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