Mr Alistair Phillips

I have been training in trauma and orthopaedics for eight years and am now a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at University Hospital Southampton (UHS) NHS Foundation Trust. I am fellowship trained in hand, wrist and elbow surgery, both at the world-renowned Pulvertaft Hand Unit in Derby and at UHS.

I have a sub-specialist interest in using local anaesthetics (LA) and have been awarded two awards by the Worshipful Company of Barbers and the British Orthopaedic Association to study this in more depth in Canada. I have produced an award winning (British Society for Surgery of the Hand) instructional video on the subject as well. I have presented nationally and regionally and have developed techniques for an almost painless injection. I have contributed to the definitive book on Wide Awake Hand Surgery by Professor Don Lalonde, ex-president of the American Association for Hand Surgery.

I completed my training in general orthopaedic surgery and have a specialist interest in surgery of the hand, wrist and elbow, in particular surgery for nerve problems and wrist injuries.

I have recently organised and run the first Quality Improvement (QI) conference at Southampton and have a particular enthusiasm for staff engagement. We are in the embryonic stages of developing "The UHS Way" which will be an extremely exciting prospect to bring together the expertise of many established and new staff at UHS to develop this over the next few years.

I set up the Wide Awake Hand Surgery service at UHS whereby patient experience and outcomes can be improved by the use of local anaesthetics in hand surgery. I am also delivering the Collagenase service for the UHS for the treatment of Dupuytren's disease.

I have a particular interest in pathways and processes and have developed techniques to pare down the inconvenience to my patients to a bare minimum. For small procedures under LA patients are given an appointment, rather like going to the dentist, and do not have to get changed out of their normal clothing. The time spent in the hospital in minimised and so too is the inconvenience. Just as I would have it myself!

I also provide a full service for all other hand, wrist and elbow problems. I work very closely with some excellent hand therapists and believe that, although surgery has its place, in hand problems particularly, therapy can be often as effective in treating some conditions. I will only operate if I feel it as close to a guarantee of success as I can make.