Mr Alex Chipperfield will discuss the patient journey for hip and knee replacement surgery to improve mobility and ease joint pain. The session will include a live presentation and the opportunity to ask questions.
Mr Chipperfield provides the following treatments at Benenden Hospital:
Our robotic-assisted knee replacement procedure offers faster recovery from surgery, so you can get back to doing what you love.
Knee pain or sore knees is common, but if it’s affecting your quality of life, we can help.
Your damaged or worn knee joint is replaced with an artificial joint to reduce pain, increase mobility and generally improve quality of life.
A safe, effective, minimally invasive treatment for knee osteoarthritis to reduce knee pain and get you moving again.
Your damaged hip joint is replaced with an artificial joint to ease pain and discomfort, improve movement and quality of life.
Keyhole surgery to explore and treat conditions which affect your knee, hip, ankle, shoulder, elbow or wrist.
A procedure to remove all or part of a torn meniscus, the cartilage ‘cushion’ in the knee joint between the bones.
Keyhole surgery to remove all or part of a torn meniscus - the cartilage ‘cushion’ in the knee joint between the bones.
Durolane (hyaluronic acid) injections can help treat pain in your joints if you have osteoarthritis.
I graduated from St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School, London in 1997 and then trained in surgery in the South of England and Gold Coast in Australia. I then rotated through Basic Surgical Training on the South Coast before gaining additional experience in orthopaedics and plastic and reconstructive surgery.
I subsequently trained as an orthopaedic registrar on the South East Thames rotation based in London, Kent and Sussex. Having passed the FRCS examinations and obtaining CCT, I spent a year in Sydney on a fellowship in hip and knee surgery.
I returned to the UK in 2010 and took up my Consultant post in hip and knee surgery in East Kent, where I worked for 13 years. Since 2022, I have worked purely in the independent sector, focused on delivering an exceptional service in primary and revision hip and knee surgery. I am a high volume arthroplasty surgeon dedicated to innovation and improved outcomes via enhanced recovery, biological interventions, technological innovation and robotic assisted surgery.
I live in Kent with my wife, two daughters and dog. In my spare time, I enjoy the outdoor life - cycling, swimming and running marathons.
My name's Alex Chipperfield. I'm a Consultant Orthopaedic surgeon here at Benenden Hospital and I specialise in hip and knee replacement surgery. I went to medical school in London and I trained in London and the south east of England before taking a fellowship over in Sydney, Australia in lower limb arthroplasty. Since 2010, I've been a Consultant Orthopaedic surgeon here in Kent, working in the NHS in East Kent hospitals and privately at Benenden and other private hospitals in the area.
I chose orthopaedics, especially hip and knee surgery because it is a practical subject. It's something that you can do to help improve people's lives. The impact that a worn out joint has on someone's life, the way it shrinks their world and limits them is quite distressing sometimes and being able to reverse that, to open up horizons and to give people their life back and allow them to get back on their feet again, is a very satisfying thing to do.
My approach to patient care is to try and be a human being about things. A lot of the time medicine is hidden behind complicated words, phrases, sayings and looking at pictures, looking at scans and people tend to forget that essentially, you know, two human beings having a conversation about things. So I try and minimise the amount of medical jargon I use, I talk to people like they're humans. I give them time to answer their questions and I listen to what they have to say and try and make the best decision together.
Benenden Hospital is a great place to work. It's a new, modern, clean, airy environment. It's small enough that there's still that human touch. A lot of big institutions can be fairly anonymous. At Benenden you can pick up the phone and speak to someone, speak to a human being straight away and there's a good group of surgeons who work here. In fact, the whole team is great. We've got leading anaesthetists. We've got modern operating theatres, we've got all the imaging facilities that we need. We've got helpful caring nurses. We've got driven physios, everything about every aspect of patient care. From the minute you step through the door is second to none.
Well, I've got two girls and a dog. So I spend a lot of my time chasing all three of those around. I also like to keep fit and active. I swim. I cycle. At the moment, I'm doing a lot of running. I'm training for a marathon in three weeks' time, which will be my fifth marathon. And, yeah, although I'm not a natural runner, I find that the discipline of training and the mental strength you need to get through that kind of thing. I find that I enjoy the challenge.
