"ltcc - harold Wood - INCREDIBLE PLACE"

I lost my right leg below knee just over a year ago and have been attending the Long Term Conditions Centre at Harold Wood Hospital since around September.

I have to say, it is unlike any other NHS establishment I have entered.

From the very point of entry to exiting on completion of my various visits, I have been astonished and the conduct, care, assistance and understanding exhibited by all staff.

The reception team are friendly and welcoming, the nursing and medical team, including the physiotherapists do everything in their power to make people like me & our partners or families feel welcome.

I feel as though I am part of their team working together for me to get the very best outcome possible for me.

It’s a very, very supportive environment.

Each time I have attended, it has been a rewarding & pleasurable experience.

It’s a very nerve-racking thing to enter a prosthetics department for the first time and I did so with fear trepidation.

This state of mind was swiftly changed upon meeting the reception team, on then to be faced by seven strangers organised in a semi-circle, all looking at me and posing questions as to the lead up to my loss of limb.

At no stage did I feel like I was being interrogated which I had wondered about, on the contrary, the Consultant and the entire team were on my side, looking to establish what they could do for me. I have never experienced anything like it, I really haven’t.

I came away from that initial meeting feeling upbeat and positive about my life to be as an amputee, it’s impossible to explain how different that makes people like I feel and what it can do for our rehabilitation.

The ambience of the place is one of positivity and a “can-do” attitude to use that dreadful expression, forgive me but it simply says it so succinctly. I don’t think I’ve seen so much as a frown from any of the staff and that speaks volumes.

Losing a limb is life changing, of that there is no doubt, the teams at LTCC work tirelessly to reduce or reverse those changes and that’s a massive and unquantifiable help.

It is no doubt that the style & success of the staff at LTCC is the result of a manager who has the support of those staff and, I would suggest those visiting it and I offer my hearty congratulations to you.

I simply have to pay tribute to the prosthetists I have had the pleasure of getting to know, and in particular to one gentleman, who has been absolutely incredible with and to me from day one.

I don’t know how he knows when I explain something’s “not quite right” with my prothesis, I thought only another amputee would understand, but he does, and he sorts it out every time. Nothing is too much and he won’t accept anything less than perfect before letting me go home.he went even further than he normally does, enlisting the help of one of the engineers, another gentleman in producing a leg for me that would enable me to continue riding my motorcycles on track as well as the road, something that I doubted was possible