I graduated from Southampton University in Electronic Engineering in 1976 and obtained a Ph.D, also from Southampton in 1982 entitled "Adaptive Control of an Arm Prosthesis". This marked my involvement with the medical profession and I was employed as a Research Fellow in Neurological Rehabilitation at Southampton before moving to Odstock Hospital, Salisbury in 1982. I was the first person employed in Clinical Science and Engineering in Salisbury where, when I left, the Department employed forty eight people. My principle areas of interest are in rehabilitation engineering, in particular functional electrical stimulation and in specialist seating and pressure sore prevention. I have 7 patents and written over 200 papers on Biomedical Engineering. I was Chief Investigator on a NIHR Programme Grant looking at all types of assistive technologies used in upper limb rehab following stroke. I was Director of Clinical Science and Engineering in Salisbury until I retired from the NHS at the end of 2014. I continued working in Salisbury until the end of 2017 as Clinical Director of Odstock Medical Limited (OML) which was the first NHS commercial company in England. We established OML in April 06 and it now turns over more than £2 million and sells products in 18 countries. I have also been a Visiting Professor of Clinical Engineering at Bournemouth University (BU) since 1999. Since 2017 I have moved to BU, continuing as Professor of Clinical Engineering (part time) with my contract equally split between HSS and FST.

We developed an extensive clinical FES service in Salisbury over the past thirty years and have seen well over 7000 patients using surface stimulation systems, and undertook the first randomised controlled trial to show the clinical efficacy of an FES orthosis, the Odstock Drop Foot Stimulator (ODFS) which is now recommended by NICE and the Royal College of Physicians. We also established the world’s first clinical service for an implanted stimulator. This clinical experience has enabled the design of a wide range of neuromuscular stimulators that have practical clinical applications which are CE marked and FDA approved. Since 2017 I have been based in the Orthopaedic Research Institute (ORI) at BU and I am working mainly on applying the techniques and equipment we developed for people with neurological problems, to people with a variety of musculoskeletal problems.

Publications

Outreach & engagement

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