King Juan Carlos of Spain will undergo another operation, on November 21, the Spanish Royal Household said on Monday.

The operation is to implant a replacement false left hip and comes in the wake of the last operation the King underwent on September 24, where he underwent surgery to resolve an infection around the original false hip, which was implanted in November 2012.

The forthcoming operation will take place in the Quiron Clinic in Madrid and will be carried out by Dr Miguel Cabanela, who was in charge of September's operation, which he stated at the time was merely the first half of a two-part process.

September saw Cabanela implant a prosthesis with antibiotics to combat the infection and now the infection has disappeared Cabanela is able to proceed with the permanent replacement.

This will be the 14th operation King Juan Carlos has needed in his lifetime and is the eighth in the last three and a half years, a period in which the King has had a nodule taken out of a lung, an operation on a distal hernia as well as his previous hip operations and an operation to give him a replacement knee.

So frequent have Juan Carlos' hospital visits become that the Spanish monarch has begun to jokingly refer to them as his "trips to the workshop."

The increasingly frequent absences of the King, who will be 76 at the start of next year have also led to some calls for Prince Felipe of Asturias, the heir to the throne to take on more duties and even for some to wonder whether or not Juan Carlos may consider abdicating to allow the prince, who is currently the most popular member of the family, to take over the crown.

The news of the King's impending operation was released on the same day it was confirmed that a court in Mallorca has impounded a luxury villa and other properties belonging to Inaki Urdangarin, the King's son in law and the husband of his youngest daughter, Infanta Cristina, as part of the ongoing Noos corruption scandal.

Urdangarin is accused along with his former partner, Diego Torres of using their non-profit Noos institute to embezzle around 6 million euros out of public funds and the properties have been impounded as bond for Urdangarin's liability in the case.

Among the properties impounded is part of the villa Urdangarin owns in Barcelona with the Infanta and to a certain extent the news of the King's operation will serve as a partial smokescreen to protect against the already considerable embarrassment the case has caused for the Spanish monarchy.