Your questions, answered plainly.

Mr Stuart A Metcalfe is a Consultant Podiatric Surgeon with over 30 years' experience, a BUPA Platinum recognised consultant and a former tutor and examiner for the Faculty of Podiatric Surgery. He consults and operates at Spire Parkway Hospital, Solihull, and also accepts online consultations.

Consultations and day-case surgery take place at Spire Parkway Hospital in Solihull, West Midlands, serving patients from Solihull, Birmingham, Coventry, Warwickshire and the wider Midlands. Remote online consultations are available for patients anywhere in the UK.

Both. Private self-pay and insured patients can book directly. NHS patients can be seen at Spire Parkway through the NHS e-Referral (Choose & Book) route via their GP — see our NHS patients page for the referral wording to give your GP.

For private appointments a referral is not required, although most medical insurers ask for one before they will authorise treatment. NHS appointments always begin with a GP referral.

Surgery is considered when pain persists despite wider footwear, padding and orthoses, when the deformity is progressing, when the second toe is being pushed out of position, or when daily activity and sport are limited. Mr Metcalfe performs both minimally invasive (percutaneous) and open corrections, and specialises in revision surgery after previous bunion procedures elsewhere.

Revision surgery corrects problems following earlier bunion surgery — recurrence of the deformity, over-correction (hallux varus), malunion or non-union, transfer pain in the ball of the foot, or a stiff and painful big toe joint. Planning usually includes weight-bearing imaging before a tailored reconstruction is agreed.

When the nail edge repeatedly becomes infected, painful or produces granulation tissue despite conservative nail care. Definitive treatment is a partial or total nail procedure under local anaesthetic, taking around 30 minutes, with most patients walking out and back in normal shoes within a few days.

Swift delivers a precisely controlled microwave pulse through the skin. There are no needles, no blistering and no open wound, so you can walk immediately afterwards. Patients describe a brief scratch-like sensation lasting a couple of seconds per pulse. Most verrucae need two to four treatments spaced from 14 days to 4–6 weeks apart, with published clearance rates of roughly 70–80%.

HyProCure is a subtalar arthroereisis: a small titanium stent placed in the natural space between the ankle and heel bone to stop the hindfoot rolling inwards in flexible flatfoot. It is a day-case procedure taking about 20 minutes, is reversible, and suits symptomatic flexible flatfoot in children, adolescents and adults where the deformity still corrects passively. Mr Metcalfe has published peer-reviewed work on subtalar arthroereisis and has had the procedure performed on his own daughter.

A podiatric surgeon specialises exclusively in the foot and ankle, covering both non-surgical care (biomechanics, orthoses, injections) and surgery. Physiotherapy is ideal for rehabilitation and tendon loading programmes. Choosing a foot-and-ankle specialist matters more than the title: assessment, imaging and a clear plan should come before any operation is discussed.

A full history, clinical and biomechanical examination, gait assessment, any imaging required, then a plain-English explanation of the options — including doing nothing — with costs and recovery timelines. You leave with a written plan, not a pressured decision.

It depends on the procedure. Nail surgery: normal footwear within days. Verruca therapy: no downtime. Minimally invasive bunion correction: protective footwear for roughly 4–6 weeks, most people back in trainers by 6–8 weeks. HyProCure: weight-bearing in a boot within days and normal shoes within weeks. Sports return is staged and supervised.

Yes. Mr Metcalfe is an experienced expert witness and prepares expert witness reports for clinical negligence and personal injury cases involving the foot and ankle, for claimant, defendant and single joint expert instructions.