Dr Russell Keenan

Dr Russell Keenan is a Consultant Paediatric Haematologist and expert witness in the United Kingdom, and has been named Medical Negligence Relating to Paediatric Haematology Expert Witness of the Year in the United Kingdom at the Corporate INTL Global Awards 2025. The award recognises a distinguished clinical career and an extensive body of medico-legal work in one of the most specialised and demanding areas of children's medicine.

Dr Keenan qualified in medicine and went on to build a career spent overwhelmingly within the National Health Service, working in the health service across more than three decades from 1990. He served as a consultant for over twenty years, most recently as Consultant Paediatric Haematologist and Haemophilia Centre Director at Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool, a role he held from 2002 until early 2024. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists and of the Royal College of Physicians, credentials that reflect his standing in both the laboratory and clinical dimensions of his specialty.

His clinical expertise covers the full breadth of paediatric haematology, encompassing both the malignant and non-malignant sides of the discipline. This includes the clinical and laboratory aspects of malignant haematology, leukaemia and stem cell transplantation, together with haemophilia and other bleeding disorders, thrombophilias, haemoglobinopathies, thalassaemias, transfusion medicine and the wider range of benign haematological disease seen in children. Few experts can speak to such a comprehensive range of conditions from direct, long-term consultant experience.

As an expert witness, Dr Keenan prepares medico-legal reports and appears in court, acting in clinical negligence cases, child protection proceedings and matters concerning all aspects of paediatric haematology. His work in this field has involved some of the most complex child protection and medico-legal cases in the United Kingdom, where careful, authoritative haematological opinion can be central to the outcome. In such cases the ability to explain difficult scientific and clinical questions clearly, objectively and reliably is essential, and it is precisely this combination of deep specialist knowledge and courtroom experience that defines his medico-legal practice. Paediatric haematology occupies a particularly sensitive place in medico-legal work, because cases involving children's blood disorders and bleeding can raise difficult questions in both clinical negligence and child protection contexts. Bruising, bleeding and haematological abnormalities in a child may have innocent medical explanations or may point to other causes, and distinguishing between them can be central to the outcome of a case. This makes the role of an experienced, independent expert who can explain the science clearly and objectively especially important, and Dr Keenan's decades of consultant practice across the whole range of paediatric haematology allow him to bring authoritative and balanced opinion to such matters.

Having stepped back from full-time NHS practice, Dr Keenan has continued to apply his expertise, including work with a private haematology laboratory, while remaining highly sought after for expert witness instructions. His recognition as Medical Negligence Relating to Paediatric Haematology Expert Witness of the Year in the United Kingdom at the Corporate INTL Global Awards 2025 reflects both the depth of his clinical career and the trust that courts and legal teams place in his opinion on some of the most sensitive cases involving children's health.