Cambridge Prosthetic and Orthotic Service has transferred from clinic nine to a newly converted base in Great Shelford that offers an array of cutting-edge new facilities and convenient free parking.
It follows the six month refurbishment and redesign of modern offices in Chaston House, Mill Court, to provide facilities for patients who have lost limbs, or need orthotic services, as a result of medical conditions or trauma.
Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT) paid to decorate a children’s area and provided a multi-thousand-pound outdoor multi-terrain walking area.
It enables amputees to trial new limbs on realistic surfaces that includes smooth surfaces, cobbles, grass, and the knobbly textures found underfoot at pedestrian crossings.
For the first time prosthetics are being made in an on-site workshop, creating new jobs and apprenticeship opportunities, and there are high-tech gait testing facilities, scanners and “force plates” to detect how patients move, and ways to help them.
The centre, operated by mobility specialist Opcare Ltd on behalf of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, is run by more than 30 staff including consultants, allied health professionals and clinical scientists.
They will assist more than 3,300 patients a year of all ages from across the region, including war veterans.
The achievement was celebrated with an official opening that included speeches and opportunities for specially invited guests including patients to join a tour of the facilities.
National operations manager, Alex Chapman, who oversaw the project, said the opening was a proud moment for the team, whose move to Great Shelford created more room for emergency department patients back at Addenbrooke’s.
She said: “We are absolutely thrilled to be able to officially open this dedicated new facility, which offers support to new patients at their greatest time of need, and to existing patients who we seen on an ongoing bases as their requirements change.
“We are grateful to all who have worked so hard on this project, which has been thoroughly tested over the last few months, and to Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust for being such an important and generous partner.”
Shelly Thake, chief executive of Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust, added: “We would like to thank supporters who have contributed to these wonderful new facilities in Great Shelford. We were particularly pleased to assist with the all-terrain facility, which will be extremely useful in assessing the suitability of the prosthetics made for patients.”
Patients needing prosthetics as a result of maxillofacial surgery, such as that seen in the Remarkable TV documentary series ‘The Face Doctors’, will continue to operate from dedicated facilities at Addenbrooke’s.
Image: (left to right) Alex Chapman and Shelly Thake.
