Amputee veterans' care gets £15m

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21 October 2011 Last updated at 10:52 GMT Headley Court is a specialist service for ex-service personnel Prosthetics services for military veterans are to receive funding of up to £15m, Prime Minister David Cameron has announced.

A review of services was carried out after concerns from charities and service personnel that the NHS was under-equipped.

The Department of Health has now said a number of specialist units will be set up across England.

Mr Cameron said the report set out a "clear strategy" for better services.

The £15m, which has been found from the Department of Health' s contingency fund, is to be invested between April 2012 and 2015.

The government will now work with service charities, including Help for Heroes and The British Limbless Ex-Service Men's Association (Blesma) as well as NHS specialists, to create new high-quality NHS facilities for prosthetic limb provision and rehabilitation.

The aim is to bring them up to the same standard as the Defence Medical Service at Headley Court. That deals with personnel who are still serving, but once they leave it is the NHS centres which take on their care.

The government is also working with the administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to improve arrangements there.

Feedback from those using and running these facilities will also be applied to services run for patients from all backgrounds who need such care.

'Confidence'

Dr Andrew Murrison MP, who compiled the report for the government, said: "The rapid rollout of the recommendations I made last year on veterans' mental health has been impressive and I look forward to these latest proposals being progressed with the same enthusiasm.

"I hope the action points I have offered honour the military covenant and benefit military amputees but I have been clear that they should also help to improve the service available to all limb centre users."

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It's recognition that military amputees need specialist support not currently available within the NHS”

End Quote Bryn Parry Help for Heroes Prime Minister David Cameron said: "As a country and as a government we have a particular duty to servicemen and women injured on operational duty.

"This report maps out a clear strategy for ensuring that those brave people can be confident they will receive the same levels of access to prosthetic limbs and specialist care from the NHS as they do at Headley Court. They deserve nothing less."

Jerome Church, general secretary of Blesma, said: "Over the last few years, our young veterans preparing to move on into civilian life have become increasingly concerned about the standard of prosthetic support they will receive from the NHS.

"We are now much more confident that the NHS will be able to provide the prosthetic support veterans need and deserve - for the rest of their lives.

"We are also delighted that this enhanced support will be extended to all veterans who lost limbs in earlier conflicts.!

Bryn Parry, chief executive of Help for Heroes, added: "It's recognition that military amputees need specialist support not currently available within the NHS."

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Rare transplant gives quadruple amputee two new hands

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1 of 4. Doctors perform a double-hand transplant at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital Plastic Surgery Transplantation Program last week, in a photo released to Reuters on October 14, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Brigham and Women's Hospital

By Lauren Keiper

BOSTON | Fri Oct 14, 2011 2:44pm EDT

BOSTON (Reuters) - A 65-year-old quadruple amputee has received two new hands in a rare double transplant operation, Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital said on Friday.

Richard Mangino got the two hands last week in a 12-hour transplant procedure by a team of more than 40 doctors, nurses and other medical staff, the hospital said.

Mangino said he's adjusting to the new hands gradually and said now he won't have to "perform a miracle" every day to do simple things like make coffee and get dressed.

Speaking at a news conference seated in a wheel chair with his arms and hands propped on stack of pillows, Mangino said he prayed for the ability to touch his grandsons' faces, stroke their hair and teach them to throw a ball

Mangino, from Revere, Massachusetts, lost his arms below the elbows and legs below the knees after contracting sepsis, a bloodstream infection, in 2002.

The complicated surgery included transplanting skin, tendons, muscles, ligaments, bones and blood vessels on both forearms and hands, the hospital said.

Doctors said Mangino independently moved fingers just days after surgery and called the results a "resounding success."

His recovery will take many months and doctors expect him to regain sense of touch in six to nine months with ongoing therapy to help him learn to grasp and pick things up.

The double-hand transplant is the second performed by Brigham and Women's, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School.

In May, a team performed a full face transplant and its first double-hand transplant on Charla Nash, a Connecticut woman who was mauled by a chimpanzee in 2009.

The hospital said the hand transplant was successful, but the hands did not thrive after complications from pneumonia and were removed.

There are a few other programs around the country that perform hand transplants.

The first hand transplant was performed in France in 1998, and the first in the United States was completed a year later.

Doctors said about a dozen hand transplants have been done in the U.S. and believe just four of those have been bilateral.

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Jerry Norton)

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