A new clinic – the first of its type in the country – has been launched by the Trust to help amputee patients.

The new service at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham brings together four different specialties so that a patient no longer has to be seen at four different clinics.

It is hugely beneficial for the patient in that it saves them time and is more convenient.

But it also makes it more likely that all their complex problems are resolved because the experts are all together in the same room.

The new clinic brings everything together the four key specialisms - Prosthetists/Rehab, Pain, Orthopaedic and Plastic surgeons.

It is the first of its kind in the UK for amputees and is already attracting interest from other Trusts.

The clinic is aimed at both complex amputee patients and patients considering amputation. These may be patients who have been involved in an accident or they may be military personnel.

At the moment it is a pilot project and has been running on a Friday every other month at orthopaedics outpatients in area four.

It is the brainchild of Lt Col James Baden, Consultant Plastic Surgeon and Clinical Service Lead for Plastic Surgery for Division 5.

He said: “I saw a number of amputee patients who were coming to me with problems and a lot of the problems were multi- factorial.

“The problem was that they were basically going round and round in circles seeing various different people.”

Such patients might, for example, have a pain issue, a problem with prosthetic fit and a problem that might require a surgery -  all of which need different expertise.

He added: “It seemed the obvious thing to do to get all in a room together for the very complex patients to try to address those issues and provide a better service for the patient.

“The clinic is for the complex amputated patients. There’s a group of patients who have multifactorial problems requiring various trips to different specialties such as limb pain or prosthetic fit.

“Hopefully we can also get to the root of what the problem is and give them the correct treatment. It’s great for patients as they go to one place.

“It is seen as a pilot at the moment – and the first six months have gone extremely well. I don’t think there’s any other clinic in the country that currently has all four specialties in the one clinic specifically for amputees.”

Two recent innovations in amputee surgery have meant that there are now more surgical options for patients.

The new clinic allows discussions between the pain team and the surgeons to determine appropriate patients for new options such as Targeted Muscle Reinnervation (TMR) which involves rewiring nerves that were going into the amputated limb.