Mr Simon Lambert

Mr Simon Lambert is one of London's most reputable orthopaedic surgeons who specialises in shoulder and elbow surgery. He sees patients at Spire Healthcare Bushey, The Orthopaedic Centre at The Princess Grace Hospital and The Wellington Hospital Elstree Waterfront. Mr Lambert was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the University College London Hospital in 2017 to undertake complex and revision reconstruction of difficult conditions of the shoulder and elbow.

His specific clinical interests are the evaluation and management of acute trauma of the shoulder and elbow; the reconstruction of post-traumatic deformity (malunion) and non-union (with and without infection) of the shoulder and elbow; neuromuscular disorders of the shoulder and elbow (including the upper extremity sequelae of Erbs Palsy, so-called Sprengel shoulder, and muscular dystrophy); complex soft tissue reconstructions (including muscle transfers) for rotator cuff disease and instability of the shoulder and elbow; complex and revision joint replacement and rehabilitation for the shoulder and elbow.

He is helping to develop the shoulder and elbow service at UCLH into the leading tertiary referral centre in London and the South East for the treatment of infection and revision joint replacement in the shoulder and elbow. Mr Lambert is the honorary consultant orthopaedic surgeon for The Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and holds several visiting honorary consultant positions in hospitals around the UK. He helps colleagues with difficult surgical cases. During his training, Mr Lambert was invited to two AO Fellowships in Switzerland working under Professors Gerber and Hertel, both shoulder surgeons of international reputation. He was appointed as consultant to the University Hospital of Southampton in 1996, developed the busy orthopaedic trauma service at that hospital, and was awarded the prestigious North American Travelling Fellowship of the European Society for Surgery of the Shoulder and Elbow (ESSSE) in 1998.

He was appointed to the staff of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in 2001, working with Mr Ian Bayley, and developed the service into a nationally-regarded centre for specialist shoulder rehabilitation. Simon has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, editorials and reviews, and 20 book chapters, including revisions of the chapters on the shoulder girdle and shoulder joint in Gray’s Anatomy, on a wide range of topics related to the shoulder and elbow. He is completing an MD thesis in UCL on fixed-fulcrum total shoulder arthroplasty. His major research interests are on the anatomy of shoulder pain, the anatomy and biomechanics of the shoulder girdle, joint replacement of the shoulder and elbow, including novel prosthetic designs for the elbow in conjunction with colleagues at the Institute of Orthopaedics and Musculoskeletal Medicine at UCL, and the functional outcome of shoulder fractures.

He reviews papers for several major orthopaedic journals including the JBJSAm (for which he has been elected to the Elite Reviewer programme), BJJ, JSES, AOTS and Shoulder and Elbow, being on the editorial board of the last. He is currently a member of the Steering Board of a series of Delphi consensus investigations lead by colleagues in Zurich, Switzerland, designed to define the parameters required for effective review of shoulder replacements and shoulder fractures.

He is Chairman of the Upper Extremity Global Expert Commission of the AO Technical Commission in Switzerland, has convened and chaired Masters' level cadaver-based surgical anatomy courses which he developed for the AO, and his research has contributed to the design and development of several trauma implants currently in global use. He has initiated the development of an AO teaching App to develop the understanding of the biomechanics of fracture healing and fixation, which has received a large grant from the AO over the next 3 years. This will complement his work as a member of the Editorial Board of the ICUC (ICUC.net) which is the largest comprehensive database of prospectively gathered operative data for skeletal fracture management in existence. Simon is one of the three members of the Editorial College of the AO Surgery Reference, one of the most visited teaching and practical fracture care websites in current use and is currently editing the distal humeral and periprosthetic upper extremity fracture chapters. He has participated in the recent redesign of the revision total shoulder replacement NJR data sets and has been active in the British Elbow and Shoulder Society, as Treasurer, Secretary, Ordinary Council member, and Education Committee member. He is active in ESSSE/SECEC having served on the Website and Rehabilitation committees, and was a founding surgical member of the European Shoulder and Elbow Rehabilitation Society.

Simon enjoys teaching others at all levels of experience about the shoulder and elbow, and gives lectures internationally, but values greatly the interaction with colleagues more locally. Simon participates in the hospital-based audit of surgical practice, including peer-review at upper extremity MDTs, and actively invites comments from patients through web-based feedback systems in order to make sure that his patients receive the best possible care. Details of all joint replacements undertaken under Simon’s care are entered into the National Joint Registry database for long-term follow-up. Simon has engaged with AO Global Data to initiate a method of prospective data collection for all his patients, seeking improved ways of assessing functional decrements and achievements in response to intervention.