Charles Pailthorpe (CP) and Zulfiquar Rahimtoola (ZR) specialise in hand and wrist surgery.

CP has been the only Orthopaedic Surgeon in Reading for fourteen years with a major interest in the management of acute and chronic orthopaedic conditions affecting the hand and wrist up to the elbow. His previous military experience and training in different parts of the world gives him a breadth of knowledge of these conditions. He was joined by ZR in 2006 which allows a more comprehensive hand surgery service to be available in West Berkshire. Current training in hand surgery now encompasses both the orthopaedic and plastic surgery disciplines and offers a more extensive service dealing with the myriad of problems that affect the hand. ZR has trained at four such centres of excellence, both in this country and in Spain and France and brings a wealth of differing experiences from these units.

The West Berkshire Community Hospital is an NHS facility with a custom built day bed unit and both surgeons are now operating there, performing both elective and trauma cases. The excellent facilities include state of the art x-ray equipment and operating instruments. The hand service at this hospital is expected to increase steadily in the coming year.

Jill Gillespie is the senior hand therapist at the Royal Berkshire Hospital and with her team has created a first class hand therapy department. Not only is Jill innovative in the management of hand therapy but her artistry in producing all the diagrams in this site is outstanding.

We hope that you find this site useful as it is primarily to provide extra information for our patients that may not have come out in the consultation. It is not meant to be totally comprehensive but should give some insight into the different conditions, the potential treatment options and the risks and complications.

It is a developing site and your constructive comments are welcomed, please email your thoughts to pailt (@) doctors.org.uk [I have not put the specific address as it is too easy for spammers to read it]

NHS Hospitals

Royal Berkshire Hospital, London Road, Reading, RG1 5AN

West Berkshire Community Hospital, Benham Hill, London Road, Thatcham, RG18 3AS

Private Clinic/Hospital

Reading Orthopaedic Centre, Berkshire Independent Hospital, Wensley Road, Coley Park, Reading, RG1 6UZ