Godfrey Charnley: "Extremely angry" at being accused

Godfrey Charnley, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, said he threw the spoon - said to have hit a nurse on the arm - in anger at not having the proper equipment.

Mr Charnley is claiming unfair constructive dismissal after leaving Derriford Hospital in Plymouth last year in disgust at the way it was run.

He also denied at an industrial tribunal on Thursday that he had threatened Sister Helen Wood, who had been in the operating theatre at the time of the spoon throwing.

I did not harm anyone. I was trying to protect patients Godfrey Charnley

Julian Hoskins, for the Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust, suggested that Mr Charnley threatened her unless she tore up a report into the incident.

Mr Charnley told the hearing: "I did not threaten Sister Wood. I asked to see the form to make sure it was a fair representation of what had gone on."

'Extremely angry'

He added: "I do not adhere to the Sir Lancelot Spratt type of surgery."

He accepted that he had been "extremely angry I was being accused maliciously of hitting a nurse".

He said: "I undoubtedly lobbed the spoon on the floor.

"It was a moment of frustration, perhaps petulance.

"But I did not harm anyone. I was trying to protect patients."

He said he should have been offered a sharp spoon, or curette, to scrape off damaged tissue around the hip.

Spoon 'ridiculous'

Mr Charnley, who now works at a hospital near his home in Coggeshall, Essex, later used �150 of his own money to buy a curette.

The NHS Trust told the tribunal that the sterilised spoon was accepted as an implement by some surgeons.

It even had a name, the Anderson Spoon, after an orthopaedic surgeon who uses a common dessert spoon.

But Mr Charnley said he had never heard of the Anderson Spoon.

"I think a spoon is a ridiculous option," he said.

The tribunal continues.