30 years caring for burns patients in Wakefield

Consultant plastic surgeon Alan Phipps is celebrating 30 years working for Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust at Pinderfields in Wakefield, and 40 years in the NHS overall, where he specialises in caring for burns patients.

Colleagues say Alan is now the longest serving burns consultant in the UK! He has trained and worked as a surgeon for many years, starting work at Pinderfields in 1994.

At that time, he worked alongside just two other plastic surgeons; now he has 15 other colleagues, five who specialise in burns, alongside a group of intensive care anaesthetists.

He fondly remembers the establishment of the Regional Burns Centre in 1966, when it was the first centre of its type in the NHS.

Alan said: “A great deal has changed over the years. The caseload has grown hugely, and we now assess about 1,600 new burn patients a year and admit nearly 400 from Emergency Departments all over Yorkshire.”

Over the years Alan has seen Pinderfields Hospital re-built in 2011 and he also remembers the tragedy of the Bradford City stadium fire in 1985 when the Burns Centre treated the most severely burned victims, something his colleague Dr Settle was awarded an OBE for.

Alan said: “It has been my privilege to have been surrounded for 30 years by people – surgeon colleagues, intensivists, nurses, therapists, psychologists, and others – whose professional knowledge and skills are amongst the very best, and whose willingness and determination to work as a coherent team has been a joy.

“This has allowed us to deliver high-quality care and to embrace new treatments for newly burn-injured patients as well as those needing follow-up, rehabilitation, psychosocial support and reconstructive surgery.”

Trust Chairman, Keith Ramsay, said: “I would like to thank Alan for dedicating 30 years of his life to treating burns patients in Wakefield and his long service to the Trust. Alan’s experience and skills have helped to shape burns care across the region, and I am very proud of everything he has achieved. I would like to thank him on behalf of all the patients he has treated and on behalf of Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust.”