Mr Samuel Rajaratnam

Mr Sam Rajaratnam FRCS (Tr. & Orth.) is an internationally renowned Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon specialising exclusively in knee surgery, with a particular expertise in knee replacement surgery and sporting injuries of the knee.

His London private practice is based at the Cleveland Clinic, Belgravia and his out of London practice at The Horder Centre, Crowborough – which is a centre of excellence for orthopaedic care in Southern England.

He regularly treats members of the British establishment, prominent sportspersons, actors and many well known personalities, and has an established word of mouth practice. He also treats members of the Professional Football Association and is on the faculty of the FIFA Football medicine conference each year.

Knee Replacement Surgery

Over his career, Mr Rajaratnam has personally performed more than 5,000 knee replacements in the UK (approx. 550 partial, full and revision knee replacements each year), in addition to several thousand more knee replacements internationally, with excellent outcomes. He is an expert on rapid recovery and lower pain scores following knee surgery.

He has developed an expert multidisciplinary team with Anaesthetist Dr. Barry Phillips to deliver excellent care and the latest pain relieving techniques after Knee Replacement Surgery.

Rapid recovery and innovation 

Mr Rajaratnam has championed the concept of ‘rapid recovery and enhanced pain relief’ following knee replacement surgery and lectures internationally on the subject.

His latest innovations in this field have been carefully developed over his extensive career and include a shorter operating time, advanced surgical techniques, multimodal anaesthesia, the use of local anaesthetic infusions to make knee replacement surgery less painful, elite rehabilitation with leading physiotherapists around the country and ROSA Robotic assisted knee surgery.

He has assembled a team of intensive care consultants, anaesthetists, specialist nurse practitioners, sports and exercise medicine consultants and physiotherapists to work together as a team throughout a patient’s recovery, to reduce pain and discomfort after knee surgery.

The latest joint replacement techniques he performs also include both partial, full and revision replacements and the use of patient-specific customised alignment methods for accurate fitting of knee implants.

Results, Outcomes and the National Joint Registry

The NJR (National Joint Registry) regularly publishes data on joint replacement surgery, closely monitoring hospital performance and consultant specific outcomes.

Mr Rajaratnam has one of the Lowest Revision (failure) rates and best outcomes (PROMS) after knee replacements on the U.K. National Joint Registry over the last 20 years and is a huge advocate for transparent outcome measure driven healthcare.

View Mr Rajaratnam’s NJR profile here 

Robotic knee replacement surgery

Mr Rajaratnam is an international authority on robotically assisted knee replacement surgery and the ROSA® Knee System (from Zimmer Biomet). Having successfully implemented the first commercially active ROSA® Knee System for robotically assisted knee replacement surgery in the UK in December 2020, he then introduced the ROSA system to The Horder Centre in August 2022 with great success.

Mr Rajaratnam now regularly trains other surgeons from around the world on this robotic technique of knee surgery and The Horder Centre and The Cleveland Clinic are visitation centres for consultants hoping to learn these latest techniques in knee replacement surgery.

Treatment of soft tissue knee injury 

Mr Rajaratnam is a fellowship-trained soft tissue knee surgeon and treats numerous professional and amateur sportsmen and women with soft tissue knee injuries.

He has an interest in day case ACL reconstructions and has performed over 1800+ ACL reconstructions in his career, where patients are able to comfortably walk out of hospital within four hours of their operation.

He is one of the chosen surgeons for the Professional Football Association (PFA) and is on the Isokinetic FIFA Football Medicine Conference faculty each year.

He is excited about the advances in stem cell and biological solutions for treating appropriate cartilage defects in the knee but is very careful in selecting the appropriate patient for each new technique, to practice proven and transparent evidence-based medicine.

Education and Training

Mr Rajaratnam trained at Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospital in London and qualified with a First-Class degree in Anatomy and an MBBS in 1997.

He then received further higher surgical training with the Royal College of Surgeons of England and at numerous centres of excellence in the UK, with fellowship training in complex knee surgery in Sydney, Australia.

He was awarded the Walter-Mercer Gold Medal in 2006 for the best performance in the final FRCS (Trauma & Orthopaedics) examination in 2006 and was appointed as a Consultant Knee surgeon in February 2008.

He was the director of Orthopaedics at the Schoen Clinic in Marylebone- London between 2018-2023 and now practices exclusively at the Cleveland Clinic, Belgravia, and at The Horder Centre, Crowborough.