Plastic Surgeon & Medico-legal Expert

Welcome to Mr Stone’s medico-legal practice. Mr Stone is an experienced NHS Consultant Plastic Surgeon and previously Clinical Director of Specialist Surgery at The Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust.

Mr Stone specialises in the NHS in the management of malignant melanoma and soft tissue sarcoma. He continues to offer private treatment to patients with these conditions, as well as to those presenting with benign skin and soft tissue lesions.

Mr Stone was appointed as a Consultant Plastic Surgeon in 2001. He has extensive experience of a wide range of cosmetic surgery, although over the past ten years he has concentrated upon aesthetic surgery of the breast (augmentation, reduction, mastopexy) and trunk (abdominoplasty and liposuction).

From August 2020, Mr Stone will no longer be able to see new cosmetic patients due to his NHS commitments and busy medico-legal practice.

The Royal College of Surgeons offer good advice on those thinking of having cosmetic surgery.

Mr Stone also has extensive experience as a plastic surgery medico-legal expert with a special interest in clinical negligence and fitness to practise. All instructions for reporting in both clinical negligence and personal injury cases in Exeter, London and Cardiff can be directed to Mr Stone via our online form.

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Link to Mr Stone's Skin Lesions for malignant melanoma & soft tissue sarcoma information

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Medico-legal News

Nervous shock and the Material Gap: Paul v. Wolverhampton in the High Court

On 4 November 2019 Master Cook struck out a nervous shock claim by the children of Mr Paul who collapsed and died from an untreated heart condition whilst out on a shopping trip with them in the centre of Wolverhampton. I wrote a blog piece commenting upon that decision. Today Chamberlain J. has allowed the Claimant’s appeal and reinstated the claim. It is not known whether the Defendant will stick or twist with an appeal to the Court of Appeal on what the judge described as a difficult point of law. The judgment provides an impressive and comprehensive review of… [...]

Dealing with the increased risks to BAME NHS staff treating Covid-19 patients

Summary: Empirical data suggest that people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (“BAME”) backgrounds are being disproportionately affected by Covid-19 and, on Wednesday 29th April 2020, NHS England gave sensible and important interim guidance to Hospital Trusts, pending an investigation by Public Health England. Some Trusts are seeking to protect BAME staff with measures including removal from the front line. This blog examines whether these well-intentioned measures are lawful. Background: While about 14% of the UK population in the 2011 Census were from a BAME background, they make up about 34% of critically ill Coronavirus patients, according to an April 2020 NHS… [...]

Commercial surrogacy is undoubtedly a head of loss

Summary: The Supreme Court in Whittington Hospital NHS Trust v XX [2020] UKSC 14 has upheld the Court of Appeal’s decision to award damages for Californian commercial surrogacy to an infertile British claimant. Such an award of damages is the first of its kind in the fields of personal injury and clinical negligence. Christopher Johnston QC and Claire Watson successfully acted for Ms X, the claimant/respondent, and were instructed by Alison Eddy and Anne Kavanagh of Irwin Mitchell. [...]

Managing Uncertainty in the Mechanism of Injury

Lessons from the recent cases of: Saunders v Central Manchester NHS Trust 2018 EWHC 343 QB Collyer v Mid Essex NHS Trust 2019 EWHC 3577 QB Schembri v Marshall 2020 EWCA Civ 358. Surgical cases often provide difficulties for Claimants because it is not always clear how the alleged negligent injury occurred – nothing being noted at the time and the injury only becoming apparent post operatively. In the first two of these recent cases Claimants failed on breach because they could not prove the probable mechanism of injury, let alone that it was negligent. This is quite common in… [...]

Corona Crisis: Standard of Care

Hard-pressed clinicians may well be wondering: what standard of care can be expected of them during a pandemic? The modern law of clinical negligence has never been tested at a time of national crisis. Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee[1], which is generally regarded as the origin of the key legal principles in this area, was reported in 1957. Although this seems historic to a modern practitioner, it is a post-war judgment. The General Medical Council’s recent guidance on coronavirus includes the following statement of principle: “Doctors should continue to follow our guidance as far as is practical in the… [...]