Patrick Hourigan

The Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital

About Patrick Hourigan

Patrick qualified form King’s College Hospital in 1985 and initially worked in London before moving to Devon in 1989. He is a member of both the Society of Orthopaedic Medicine and the Manipulation Association of Chartered Physiotherapists. In 1992 he was appointed to work alongside Chris Weatherley in the Department of Spinal Surgery in Exeter in one of the first UK ESP roles. He co-authored several publications about the ESP role which appeared amongst others, in The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1994 and 1998 and in Physiotherapy in 1995. He was one of the founding members of the ESP OIG as it was known at the time and its vice-chair from 1997-1999 and Chair from 1999-2001. He was a member of the National Patients Action Team- Action on Orthopaedics Steering Group at the Department of Health between 2000-2003 and sat on the NICE Orthopaedics Protocol Advisory Group 1999-2000. He started training in spinal injection techniques in 2010 and has both presented and has since published papers on the subjects nationally and internationally. He leads a team of 4 secondary care ESPs at The Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital.