PhysioUpdate 22nd November 2022

People who will now be eligible to receive a sophisticated bionic arm through NHS England will feel like Christmas has come early, according to a military veteran who received the high-tech prosthetic two years ago.

Darren Fuller, 46, from Colchester, Essex, is very impressed with the bionic hand he received in 2020. He lost a hand and forearm in his early 30s while serving with the Parachute Regiment in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

Until NHS England announced a policy shift on 5 November, the cutting-edge prosthetics were only available through the NHS to military veterans who had been injured while in service.

Physiotherapists who have been trained to equip patients with severe osteoarthritis with specially designed shoes could see their workloads increase in the future.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) launched a consultation on draft medical technologies today (15 November) that calls for Apos footwear to be made available to specific groups of people: those whose non-surgical standard care has not worked well enough  and who meet the referral criteria for total knee replacement surgery, but cannot have, or do not want, surgery. The deadline for responding to the consultation exercise is 12 December.

Members of NICE's independent medical technology advisory committee found that Apos shoes could potentially save the NHS £1,958 per person when compared with standard care over five years. The estimated cost of a trained professional providing the footwear and associated treatment is £875 per person.

Health organisations – including the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) – have broadly welcomed a government commitment to producing a long-term NHS workforce plan, an initiative that was announced yesterday (17 November) by chancellor Jeremy Hunt in his 2022 Autumn Statement.

King’s Fund chief executive Richard Murray said he was particularly pleased to hear that workforce plan would include ‘independently verified projections’ for staff numbers over the next 15 years.

‘[This] means that health and care services can plan to train, recruit and retain the staff they need in future. We hope the necessary resources will also be put in place to meet these needs.’

Mr Murray also said the additional £3.3 billion funding that had been promised was an ‘important recognition from the government’ that the NHS was ‘on its knees trying to meet demand and keep patients safe’. NHS funding is on a 'knife-edge', he warned, and leaders would be forced to 'focus solely on its top priorities and go further on an already ambitious efficiency programme'.