The NLR Steering Committee
Sean O'Leary
Sean O'Leary is based at the Royal Berkshire and Circle Hospitals in Reading and has a mixed ligament reconstruction and joint replacement knee practice.
A sportsman himself, he has a keen interest in sports injuries. He was a member of the development group which set up the National Ligament Registry and took over from Steve Bollen as Chairman in January 2013, launching the Registry in March 2013.
Tim Spalding
Tim Spalding is a specialist knee surgeon at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust and Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Warwick.
He treats all aspects of knee problems from sports related injuries to arthritis with sub-specialist interest in ligament reconstruction, meniscal transplantation, articular cartilage repair surgery, and osteotomy. He remains very active in teaching and research lecturing nationally and internationally on novel treatments and techniques in knee surgery.
Fares Haddad
Professor Haddad's clinical and research endeavours have centred around hip and knee reconstruction. His interests include the expansion of knee and hip arthroscopic techniques for sports injuries, and outcomes assessment in hip, knee and revision surgery.
He has presented and published widely on key aspects of hip, knee and sports surgery and continues to lead a clinical research group with interests in hip and knee joint preservation after injury, the genetic influences on bone and tendon, prosthetic design and performance and outcomes measurement after hip / knee surgery.
He is Editor in Chief of the Bone and Joint Journal and on the Editorial Board of The Journal of Arthroplasty, Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons and Hospital Medicine.
James Robinson
James Robinson is a Specialist Knee Surgeon based at the Avon Orthopaedic Centre in Bristol. He is a founding partner of Knee Specialists. His postgraduate Master of Surgery degree was in knee ligament biomechanics and he is a member of the international ACL Study Group.
James is a winner of the British Association of Surgery of the Knee Presidents medal. He has a keen research and teaching interest - he regularly trains senior surgeons from around the world in state-of-art techniques and is often invited to lecture on sports knee surgery at meetings run nationally and internationally.
Michael McNicholas
www.mcnicholaskneeclinic.co.uk
Honorary Professor Mike McNicholas is a Consultant Soft Tissue Knee and Trauma Surgeon at the University Hospital Aintree, Major Trauma Centre for the Cheshire and Mersey Region.
After completing Knee Fellowships in Edinburgh, Switzerland, America and Japan, he was appointed as a Consultant Trauma and Orthopaedic surgeon in Warrington General Hospital (2001), specialising in knee surgery. Mike qualified from the Universities of St Andrews (BSc, 1986), Manchester (MB, ChB, 1989) and Dundee (MD, 2000). His Orthopaedic training was in Dundee, and Edinburgh (FRCSEd Tr & Orth, 2000).
Sport has played a significant role in his life. He was a St Andrews University Blue in Swimming and Water polo and has also played Rugby, Volleyball and Football.
Mike has a keen interest in sports knee injuries and their management for all levels of players, from Premiership footballers and elite athletes to those who just want to be able to have a kick-about in the garden with their kids. His continued interest in sports medicine has been recognised by election as a Fellow of the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland.
He is regularly invited to teach at national and international meetings, training juniors and other Consultants on arthroscopic surgery, ligament reconstruction, knee replacement and trauma surgery. He has been an Honorary Senior Lecturer Department of Musculoskeletal Biology at the Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease, Faculty of Health & Life Sciences, University of Liverpool since August 2014 and has held an Honorary Professorship at the Directorate of Sport School of Health Care of the University of Salford since January 2006. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma and a reviewer for the Medical Research Council, the Bone and Joint Journal and The British Medical Journal.
The Mersey Regional Training Rotation nominated him as Trainer of the Year in 2012. He is Faculty for Train the Trainer, Training Assessment in the Clinical Environment and Advanced Arthroscopy Courses of the Royal College of Surgeons.
His current research interests include; stem cell applications in knee injury, outcomes following arthroplasty, ligament reconstruction, osteotomy, the treatment of focal articular cartilage defects and early arthritis using novel implants. Mike also focuses great interest on outcomes for complex trauma of the lower limb, such as high energy fractures treated by Ilizarov external fixation frames, multiligament injuries and dislocations of the knee and the surgical treatment of gunshot wounds.
William Hage
William Hage was educated in Cambridge and graduated from Nottingham Medical School in 1998. His higher specialist training was in Yorkshire and he entered the specialist register for Orthopaedics in 2010.
He spent a total of 18 months in fellowship training in soft tissue knee surgery with time spent with Mr Steve Bollen in Yorkshire, an internationally renowned surgeon regarded as one of the UK's premier ligament and sports authorities.
Further fellowship training was undertaken with the late Stuart Calder in Leeds at the Chapel Allerton Orthopaedic Centre, another high volume and internationally respected surgeon in the field. Mr Hage worked here to further his skills in knee replacement, preservation and corrective osteotomy.
Mr Hage is currently a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon specialising in knee surgery at the North Cumbria NHS Trust where his NHS practice is based around The Cumberland Infirmary Carlisle and The West Cumberland Hospital. He teaches locally in the trust, in the region on ATLS and nationally at conferences. His research interests lie in cartilage regeneration and complex ligament reconstruction, where he has published articles presented internationally.