What are the common symptoms that your patients tend to present with?

The commonest symptoms affecting the nose, will always be a blocked nose or sinus-related symptoms. These will include invariably a runny nose, nasal blockage or congestion with a poor sense of smell and facial pressure. Problems with the nose and sinuses affects many people. I do a lot of research in this area – this is a very debilitating and yet very common, but poorly diagnosed condition. It can adversely affect day-to-day outcomes for patients.

Other different ENT presentations include hearing impairment, and throat discomfort with voice change or ear discharge. What I do is take a detailed history and perform a comprehensive examination and devise a treatment plan to, ultimately, improve their quality of life.

What are the treatments that you're able to offer your patients?

I will be able to offer a full examination and then a blood or radiology investigation, which may involve a CT or MRI scan. I will then go through the results with the patient in the clinic room, so they have a better understanding of what is going on in terms of their condition. Studies have shown, and my experience shows, that once patients have a better hold of their condition or they have a better understanding, they're more likely to benefit from having a better overall prognosis.

The treatment will invariably involve conservative treatment first, if possible, with medication, and then a review to ensure that their treatment is working and satisfying their symptom control to their needs. If that doesn't work, I offer what's called minimally invasive surgery, which includes nasal surgery done through the nose with no external scars at all and ear or throat or head and neck surgery as appropriate. It's a relatively very painless day-case procedure; the patient will come in in the morning and they'll go home again in the afternoon. The patient will then be thoroughly evaluated again in the clinic to ensure that the purpose of surgery has been met; my revision rates for any surgery are extremely low. The only exception would be if there's pre-existing comorbidity that required a patient to be kept in overnight for monitoring.

Regarding allied services, I have a good relationship with audiology services and any required tests, for example, hearing tests, can be organised near the patient's residence. I do operate at a number of sites in North London should the patient want to be seen at different hospitals.

What are your areas of sub-specialist interest?

I cover all aspects of ENT for adults and paediatrics. The area that I particularly have focused my research and clinical interest is the nose and sinuses. That's both external correction of nasal deformities as well as advanced sinus work and skull-based surgery, both with adults and paediatrics.

My NHS practice involves a lot of general ENT because I'm very interested in my own specialty, so I do still perform a lot of ear surgery, as well as surgery for throat conditions. I manage any urgent cancer type referrals, although predominantly, cancer surgery goes through a multidisciplinary team (MDT).

In summary, the breadth of my practice would be general ENT and I treat both adults and children. My specialty interest would be facial aesthetic surgery and nasal sinus surgery.