A surgical instrument (3) comprises a housing (10), an end effector carried by the housing, and one or more connections adapted to connect the surgical instrument to a controller (1) such as an electrosurgical generator (1). The housing includes a plurality of handswitches (13A, 13B, 13C； 14A, 14B, 14C) located at different rotational positions around the housing. Sets (13A, 13B, 13C), (14A, 14B, 14C) of the handswitches are connected in common so as to send the same signal to the controller (1) whichever one of the handswitches is activated. In this way a user of the surgical instrument (3) can send signals to the controller (1) using any of the handswitches within a particular set, depending on the orientation of the surgical instrument.
