Top surgeon strengthens expertise at TLA Medicolegal

Consultant trauma and orthopaedic surgeon Simon Britten has become the latest medical specialist to be added to the team of experts at TLA Medicolegal as a full TLA Member.

Mr Britten, who is based at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, specialises in lower limb trauma including complex fragmented fractures and open fractures and will deliver detailed reports on individuals involved in personal injury cases solely via specialist provider TLA. 

Significantly, he focuses on the Ilizarov method, a limb lengthening technique originally pioneered by Gavriil Abramovich Ilizarov, a Soviet doctor who treated injured soldiers returning from World War Two.

The process is used for high energy fractures, fractures with loss of bone leading to bone defects and shorter limb length, and other conditions of limb shortening including growth plate injuries and skeletal dysplasias.

Along with a colleague, Mr Britten was one of the first UK surgeons to take on a two-month fellowship at the Ilizarov Centre in Kurgan, Siberia.

Mr Britten is the immediate Past President of the British Limb Reconstruction Society and recently spent three years as chair of the British Orthopaedic Association Medico-legal Committee. Currently he is a corresponding member of the Leg Lengthening and Reconstruction Society of North America.

He is also editor of the next edition of Medicolegal Reporting in Orthopaedic Trauma, widely regarded as the industry bible, succeeding Mike Foy and Phillip Fagg who have now retired.

“I have known of TLA for some time and their level of professionalism and competency in handling expert witness reports is second to none,” says Mr Britten.

“TLA will relieve me of the administrative side of the job so I can spend more time writing the reports, safe in the knowledge that I have a highly efficient team behind me.”

Fiona Morrison, Director and Co-founder of TLA, based in Deddington, Oxfordshire, adds: “Like many of our team of experts, Simon is a leader in his field with an outstanding record of achievement. We are delighted to be managing all his medicolegal work going forward.

“Increasing the number of experts who put all their medicolegal work through TLA is the key focus for expansion this year.”