Mr Ian Franklin

Professional statement

Mr Ian Franklin is a full-time private venous specialist, whose areas of expertise include varicose and thread veins, aesthetic phlebology, pelvic vein congestion, deep vein thrombosis, phlebitis, leg swelling and leg ulcers. He is also an expert in the management of COVID-related thrombosis.

Mr Franklin practised as an NHS doctor for 23 years, which included 12 years as consultant vascular surgeon at Imperial College NHS Trust where he performed a full range of arterial, venous and emergency vascular surgery. During this time, he also introduced many minimally invasive techniques and treatments to the NHS. For 10 years, Mr Franklin was also a programme director of the world-renowned, annual International Charing Cross Venous Course in which 5,000 surgeons attended every year.

As well as chairing the Circulation Foundation, a UK vascular disease charity, Mr Franklin was a former council member of the Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland for around 4 years. He is now the President of the Royal Society of Medicine Venous Forum and trains other specialists in modern vein techniques all over the world. Throughout his career, he has also written many scientific papers, book chapters and a surgical textbook.

Mr Franklin is one of a very small number of vascular surgeons in the UK with extensive acute COVID-19 experience. At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Ian Franklin returned to the NHS Charing Cross Hospital after suspending his private practice and spent several weeks on the frontline attending COVID-19 patients. During which, it became clear that many of those with COVID-19 develop thrombotic (blood clot) problems that can lead to serious effects on blood circulation. Ian Franklin has now reopened his private practice.