Mr Tom Pollard

Clinical Director of the trauma and orthopaedic department at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Mr Tom Pollard MD FRCS (Tr&Orth) MRCS (Eng) MBChB BSc (Hons) is a high-volume hip and knee specialist, who carries out over 600 scheduled procedures every year, consisting of total hip and knee replacements and hip and knee arthroscopies. Since 2012, he has performed more than 1,700 hip arthroscopies (keyhole surgery) and his trauma work includes revision hip and knee replacement surgery and complex hip and knee fractures, including cases involving joint replacements.

Mr Pollard gained his degree in pathology and microbiology and qualified as a doctor at the University of Bristol. He undertook his specialist orthopaedic training on the Oxford programme, where his thesis on early osteoarthritis of the hip earnt him a medical doctorate and also led to him becoming Clinical Lecturer in orthopaedic and trauma surgery at the University of Oxford.

During his fellowship training at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust in Reading, he honed his expertise in treating hip and knee conditions and joined the organization initially as a locum consultant before taking a permanent position in 2012.

Mr Pollard places great emphasis on the importance of staying active after joint replacement and one of his former patients has set up an informative Facebook discussion group ‘Hip Replacement Group for Active People’, which has proved useful to his subsequent patients in achieving this goal.

An award-winning researcher, Mr Pollard won two of the inaugural three annual International Society for Hip Arthroscopy’s awards, which enhanced his global standing as an expert in young adult hip conditions. Widely published, he is an in-demand lecturer domestically and overseas. He teaches on hip arthroscopy courses and is involved in a visiting surgeon programme, which allows consultant surgeons to benefit from studying his hip arthroscopy techniques firsthand.