The paediatric foot specialty series for physiotherapists

Michail Kokkinakis is a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital and an honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at King’s College London. He is the Lead Surgeon on adolescent hip preservation surgery at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust while his additional subspecialty interests include modern management of orthopaedic deformities in children with cerebral palsy as well as treatment of complex feet deformities.

Michail graduated from the medical school of University of Frankfurt in Germany and received his surgical and orthopaedic training in the UK and Greece. He is fellowship-trained in Glasgow, Evelina London and Stanmore. He has a PhD in orthopaedics awarded by the University of Frankfurt, Germany and a PgCert in Clinical Leadership awarded by the University of Teesside, UK. He has an extensive list of 36 Medline publications.

He is member of the British Society for Children’s Orthopaedic Surgery, British Society for Surgery in Cerebral Palsy and the European Paediatric Orthopaedic Society. He is co-chair of Cerebral Palsy Integrated Pathway for South East England as well as BSCOS Delphi flatfoot consensus group and a regular reviewer for the Bone and Joint Journal.

Gavin Spence is a full time Consultant Paediatric Orthopaedic Surgeon at Evelina London Children’s Hospital. His particular clinical interest is in external fixation and limb deformity correction. Prior to this he was a consultant for King’s College Hospital London (Dubai) and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, treating children with a variety of tertiary paediatric orthopaedic conditions including neuromuscular pathology. He trained in London and Cambridge, with fellowships in Great Ormond Street, Stanmore, and Adelaide.

Vicky has worked as a Paediatric Physiotherapist for 17 years and for the past 12 years has been working as one of two paediatric Orthopaedic Clinical Specialists at the Norfolk and Norwich hospital.

The responsibilities are varied and include working in an orthopaedic triage/normal variant clinic, seeing patients in weekly DDH clinics and a Ponseti clinic. She has completed Global Clubfoot training courses and is now a trainer herself.

Vicky was awarded a fellowship by the Association of Paediatric Chartered Physiotherapists (APCP) in 2020.

Dr Fairhurst works in a number of specialist teams involved in the management of children with motor difficulties, in particular cerebral palsy. In combination with our orthopaedic teams and gait analysis laboratory, they ensure that children are provided with comprehensive movement therapy at all ages and stages of ability.

Charlie is very experienced in the management of these difficulties, in particular the use of Botulinum Toxin A (Botox) in this group of children, to improve upper and lower limb function, comfort, care, and reduce saliva loss. He is the UK representative on a number of international working parties and is currently the chair of the national NICE guidelines in cerebral palsy.

David Jones was a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London, where he developed wide experience across the spectrum of childrens orthopaedics. Throughout his career he has been active in teaching, examining, editorial work, lectureships, research and publications and charitable work overseas.

He was BOTA Trainer of The Year, 1994, Hunterian Professor of The Royal College of Surgeons in 2002, President of The British Orthopaedic Association in 2003-4, an Elected Member of Council of RCS, 2004-2010

Now retired, he continues to be involved with teaching and charitable work involving children.

Katie qualified in 1989 and has been working as Lead Advanced Physiotherapy Practitioner (Paediatric Orthopaedics) in NHS Fife since 2016. Her clinical role within the Paediatric Orthopaedic service includes general orthopaedic out-patients as well as managing the orthopaedic needs of children with neurodisabilities to include assessment and management of focal spasticity. She also manages the day-to-day running of the Paediatric Orthopaedic service and provides a clinical leadership role to the CYP community physiotherapy service.

She gained her MSc (Dist) in Advanced Practice in 2013 and has a Post Graduate Diploma in Lower Limb Orthotic Biomechanics from University of Strathclyde. She was awarded a Fellowship from the Association of Paediatric Chartered Physiotherapists (APCP) in 2018.

Marion Main is Consultant Paediatric Physiotherapist at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. She studied in Newcastle but worked mostly in London; in neuromuscular disorders for 33 years. She is involved in clinical research, teaching and development of standards of care. The physiotherapy team see around 1800 children with neuromuscular conditions yearly. Marion studied equipment design for her master’s degree winning two national. She believes children should be stood from as young as possible. Marion has taught internationally keeping busy during Covid doing regular webinars for parents and children. She was awarded a Fellowship of the Association of Paediatric Chartered Physiotherapists in 2021 in recognition of her work.

Mr Meda is a British Orthopaedic Lower limb surgeon with a special interest in Foot and Ankle conditions. He has over 15 years of experience at consultant level in managing all aspects of elective and trauma.

In 2006 he is appointed as Consultant Foot & Ankle surgeon at Birmingham regional Royal Orthopaedic Hospital. He has 30 years wealth of orthopaedic experience in dealing with paediatric and adult foot and ankle disorders. He has given lectures all over the world and published articles in peer reviewed journals.

I have worked in paediatric physiotherapy since 1994. I currently work on a disability team providing therapy supports to a wide cohort of children. I have developed, manage and provide a specialist motor service for children with a physical disability which supports the delivery of therapy supports through assessment and intervention as needed, and supports the referral on for Gait analysis, Hip Surveillance, Orthopaedic consult and intervention, and Spasticity Management.

Elaine has worked in the NHS for over 40 years, principally as Superintendent and Clinical Specialist Paediatric Physiotherapist, North West Wales, and has been awarded an MBE for Services to Children with Disability. She has post-graduate diplomas in Lower Limb Orthotic Biomechanics and Clinical Gait Analysis. She has combined physiotherapy and biomechanics knowledge to develop clinical algorithms and new rehabilitation strategies. She has peer reviewed publications and is regularly invited to teach her course on orthotic management with OSKAR, the Optimal Segmental Kinematics and Alignment Approach to Rehabilitation. She has presented at international conferences, including AACPDM, AAOP, ESMAC & ISPO.

Sarah Paterson was appointed as an Advanced Physiotherapy Practitioner specialising in Development Dysplasia of the Hip and Clubfoot in 2008.  She works at the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People, Edinburgh where she leads the service for these specialities.  She is involved in the teaching of medical staff of all grades with regard to hip dysplasia and clubfoot.  She has travelled to Iowa, USA to study the Ponseti method of correction of clubfoot.  In her capacity as an Advanced Practitioner she performs Achilles tenotomys.

Sam qualified in 2001 with a BSc in Prosthetics and Orthotics. After graduating he worked in the NHS before becoming a founding director of The London Orthotic Consultancy. For 8 years he ran orthotic clinics at the Tadworth Brain Injury Children’s trust and Banstead Adult Brain Injury Centre.

Sam has introduced several new treatments to the UK, most notably pectus excavatum and pectus carinatum. He has also introduced a video vector gait laboratory and started working with Elaine Owen, the world’s leading authority on lower limb gait and orthotic biomechanics. With Elaine, LOC has developed a gold standard orthotic clinic which we call the Optimal Segmental Kinematic Alignment (OSKAR) treatment of patients with lower limb neurological impairment. Lastly, in 2017, Sam introduced a new unilateral club foot Cunningham brace to replace the boot and bar.