The world’s first human head transplants may be just a decade away, a former NHS neurosurgeon has said, after working out how to achieve the groundbreaking operation.

Bruce Mathew, a former Clinical Lead for Neurosurgery at Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, is now an expert in hyperbaric medicine, helping divers to recover from the bends.

But while working on a science fiction novel with the futurist author Michal J Lee, he realised there was a plausible way to move the consciousness of one person to another body, and that recent advancements in robotics, stem cell transplants, and nerve surgery now make the prospect achievable within the next decade.

The controversial Italian professor Sergio Canavero is also currently working on the world’s first head transplant, but his method involves severing the head from the spinal column and reattaching it to a donor body.

But Mathew said it would be far more effective to take the whole head and spinal cord as a single entity, and replace it in a donor body.