Consultant Spotlight: Mr Michael Thomas

Mr Michael Thomas has worked with TLA Medicolegal for over a decade and is one of TLA’s upper limb specialists.

Mr Thomas qualified at Kings College Hospital, London in 1980.  His training in Trauma and Orthopaedics involved a year in Cape Town, South Africa, working in a number of hospitals in the Cape including the Groote Schuur Hospital.  He was a senior registrar on the St Mary’s, London, rotation which included specialist training in shoulder surgery by Stephen Copeland at the Royal Berkshire Hospital and by Ian Bayley at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore.  He was appointed Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon to Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals, Berkshire, in 1994 to establish a service in shoulder and elbow surgery which is now part of Frimley Health Foundation Trust.  He has served as Clinical Director of Orthopaedics within his hospital for 7 years and is currently the Senior Consultant and Upper Limb Lead for the Trust.  He is one of six consultants within a very busy shoulder and elbow unit which now serves a population of over 1 million.

Mr Thomas has been an elected officer to many positions on the council of the British Elbow and Shoulder Society (BESS) since 2008, serving as President of the society from 2015 – 2017.  He stepped down as Past President on council in 2021.  Since 2011 he has been an Associate Editor of Shoulder and Elbow (the official journal of BESS) since 2011.  He has also served as the UK national delegate to the European Society for Surgery of the Shoulder and Elbow (SECEC) (2015-2017) and was on the Medical Advisory Committee of the National Joint Registry (2013-17).  He is a former BESS representative to the International Shoulder Arthroplasty Consortium (ISAC) and continues to be a Specialist Adviser to NICE’s Interventional Procedures Programme since 2015 and Reviewer for National Institute Health Research (NIHR) since 2016.  He has recently been appointed to the Joint Steering Committee of 2 national clinical trials.

Mr Thomas has published multiple articles and book chapters on shoulder and elbow surgery and has lectured on a variety of shoulder and elbow related problems, both nationally and internationally.  He has also co-written and published a number of nationally accepted guidelines on shoulder and elbow problems through his work with colleagues within BESS, partnered with other government and healthcare associations aimed at standardising treatment and referral pathways to drive quality improvement for patients in the UK.

Mr Thomas has been accepting medicolegal work since his appointment as a consultant, but currently his practice involves work for several major law firms who have instructed him as a single joint expert, or for the defendant and claimant on personal injury cases mainly involving the shoulder and elbow.  He also performs medical negligence reports on upper limb cases concerning the management of shoulder and elbow pathology as well as general upper limb trauma cases.

Mr Thomas currently receives about 200 instructions per year and maintains his CPD in medicolegal work regularly attending courses to update him on the changes and current practices within this field.  Mr Thomas holds medicolegal clinics in Windsor, Maidenhead & Kingston-upon-Thames.

Please contact Alice at alice@tla-medicolegal.com for more information or a copy of Mr Thomas’ CV.