Opcare

Roehampton

Tel: 0208 487 6045

Douglas Bader Rehabilitation Centre
Queen Mary’s Hospital
Roehampton Lane
Roehampton
London
SW15 5PN

Tel: 0208 487 6045/6046

Web: www.wandsworth-pct.nhs.uk

 

transport and hospital facilities

 

Opening Times

Monday - Friday: 08.00-4.00pm

 

Latest News

February 2012: One of our prosthetists in The New Year Honours List 2012

Opcare are delighted to announce that Nicholas John Hillsdon, one of our prosthetists in Roehampton, was included in The New Year Honours List for 2012 for his services to Prosthetics and the community. Nick is an outstanding prosthetist who specialises in upper limb prosthetics and helps provide a prosthetic service of international renowned at Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton.

Starting as a trainee prosthetist in 1978 at Roehampton, Nick's professional achievements to date include first clinical trials of myoelectric arms in the early 1980s and the development of many different upper limb socket types. His main claim to fame came in 2003 when he fitted Ali Abbas, a high level amputee who lost both arms in Iraq after an American rocket exploded next to their home, with artificial arms. In 2009, he also won the best paper for his presentation of an innovative lightweight upper limb design that he had developed.

Nick is a hugely popular member of the team with patients and staff alike and is thoroughly deserving of this award. Please join us in congratulating Nick on this great achievement and recognition of his contributions.

 

September 2010: Andrew and Tom, along with members of the Limbless Association will be climbing Mount Kilimanjaro to help raise money for the Limbless Association. Their donation pages can be found at:

www.justgiving.com/andrewskilimanjarochallenge for Andrew and

www.justgiving.com/tomskilimanjarochallenge for Tom

 

Read previous news articles here

 

Centre Information

Queen Mary's Hospital was founded as a place for amputee rehabilitation in 1915 by Mary Eleanor Gwynne Halford. Throughout the two world wars the hospital grew in reputation around the world. By 1922, the hospital had started admitting limb patients other than war casualties, like rail employees and congenitally deformed children. In November 2006, the new QMH was opened by His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester.

The prosthetic services in Roehampton look after over 2,500 patients with a prosthetic staff consisting of 11 prosthetists and 16 technicians. Working along side is a team of highly experienced staff made up of doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, social workers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and administrators. Also based in the department is the Vitalli clinic, walking school/therapy gym, rehabilitation gym, gait lab and the Gwynne Halford ward, a dedicated ward for up to 12 individuals to stay during their prosthetic rehabilitation. All our multi disciplinary team members boast a wealth of experience in dealing with all aspects of the rehabilitation of the amputee. We have a clinical specialist in upper limb prosthetics and QMH is used for the above knee osseointegration pilot study program.

The service also benefits from a dedicated user group who meet once every two months to discuss the service provided. Their web site can be found at http://www.rlug.org.uk/

 

 

Patient feedback

It is always great to hear from patients, such as Holly and Martin:

Enterprising upper limb amputee, Holly Franklin, frustrated by fruitless efforts to use ordinary hair ties had resorted to cutting her hair and keeping it short until she decided to tackle the problem a different way by designing her own. These hair ties, called 1-UP Hair Ties, are designed to be used by anyone with upper limb deficiency or reduced upper limb mobility whatever the cause.

As Holly says: 'As an upper limb amputee, the 1-UP has allowed me to do a pony tail one handed and do away with fiddly, less secure hair accessories such as claws and clips.'

click here to visit her website

Describing his experience of wearing the new waterproof LimbLogic, Martin Stephens says:

'With my old leg I could only do about 5 minutes exercise before I could feel sweating and more movement, with the new LimbLogic I put my leg on in the morning, do an hour at the gym, spend my day doing whatever, go for an hours cycle in the evening and still don't take my leg off till I go to bed. I am so much more comfortable in what seems every situation and that is only after a week, I can honestly say this feels like the start of me getting my life back.'