Angus Wallace

Wallace has also spoken out about a number of systemic issues in health care provision. A 2006 article of his in the British Medical Journal drew widespread media attention for its negative assessment of independent sector treatment centres (ISTCs). He focused on the high rate of complication in hip replacement surgery, stating that some ISTCs had failure rates of as high as 20 times the expected 1% baseline, and noted serious errors such as failure to apply bone cement and joint replacements with an incorrect ball size. He attributed this to inadequate oversight of junior overseas-qualified ISTC doctors by seniors with more experience in the practice of medicine, and suggested that the NHS' own personnel management policies, in particular "additionality" – forbidding NHS doctors from working in ISTCs for six months after their separation from the NHS – was contributing to the problem. He also criticised the false economy of providing funding to ISTCs in response to NHS wait times for surgeries, noting that the NHS was often left to "pick up the pieces" and the costs after poorly-performed surgeries by ISTCs.

Wallace would go on to work in sports medicine, and became chairman of the National Sports Medicine Institute. After a 2002 spate of broken metatarsals – normally a rather uncommon injury – among footballers including Beckham, Neville, and Murphy, he expressed his concerns that the game of football was being played "harder" in recent years and that as a result "the forces applied to the bones are more frequent and possibly greater ... and it could be that the bones are being over-strained". He treated a number of famous athletes, including Wayne Rooney, who had been referred to him by England national football team doctor Leif Swärd, earlier a medical school classmate of his.

By 1995, Wallace had already achieved the respect of the medical community for his work in orthopaedic surgery, but he came to wider public attention that year when he and fellow doctor Tom Wong performed a mid-air surgery to save a woman's life. While British Airways Flight 032 from Hong Kong to London was still on the ground, Wallace and Wong briefly examined a fellow passenger complaining of arm pains. She stated she had fallen from a "bike", by which Wallace assumed she meant a bicycle. They concluded she had a fractured bone in her arm, and after takeoff returned to apply a splint. However, in the flight's second hour, the passenger further complained of chest pain. It emerged that she had not merely fallen from a bicycle but had been flung to the ground while riding on a motorcycle that collided with a car; Wallace suspected she had previously concealed the extent of her injuries so as to avoid being taken off the flight.

In 1989, he treated a number of victims of the Kegworth air disaster, in which a British Midland flight crashed onto the embankment of the M1 motorway, and conducted further investigations into injuries sustained in the crash. Following a half-decade of research, he concluded that passengers failed to adopt the brace position correctly, resulting in many injuries; his research team's suggestion of a different brace position had been adopted by all UK airlines by 1999.

William Angus Wallace (born 31 October 1948) is a Scottish orthopaedic surgeon. He is Professor of Orthopaedic and Accident Surgery at the Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences of the University of Nottingham. He came to widespread public notice for a life-saving surgery he performed using improvised equipment on a British Airways flight in 1995, and for treating Wayne Rooney before the 2006 FIFA World Cup.