Brian Sommerlad is an honorary consultant plastic surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London, and at the St Andrew’s Centre for Plastic Surgery, Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford. He was the first Clinical Director of the North Thames Cleft Lip and Palate Service (GOStA).

He is a past president of both the British Association of Plastic Surgeons and the Craniofacial Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

Although involved in many aspects of plastic surgery, his main activity now is centred around surgery for children and adults with cleft of lip and palate and associated conditions.

He has been particularly involved in the development of the operating microscope for cleft palate repair and in refining surgery for repair of the muscles in cleft palate, and in re-repairing the cleft palate as an alternative to pharyngoplasty in some patients. Details of publications on these and other subjects can be found in his online CV.