• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Arts, Culture and Sport / Children begin to receive prostheses that will help them run, swim… or play the violin
A teenager examines his new running blade, watched by a woman in a white uniform

Children begin to receive prostheses that will help them run, swim… or play the violin

By John Pring on 12th January 2017 Category: Arts, Culture and Sport

Listen

Hundreds of disabled children in England are starting to benefit from a new fund that will provide them with the specialist prosthetic limbs they need to take part in sports and other activities that were previously inaccessible to them.

The Department of Health (DH) has provided £750,000 to fund running blades and other activity prostheses in a trial that will allow under-18s who were born without a limb or have lost a limb to take part in activities such as team sports, swimming, climbing, dancing and playing musical instruments.

The funding is being provided through NHS limb centres, which are being given the money to source and fit the prostheses.

Another £750,000 is linking research centres with expertise in child prostheses with experts from the NHS, industry, and clinical academia.

The £1.5 million fund was announced by health secretary Jeremy Hunt during last summer’s Paralympic Games in Rio, and the first children have now begun to receive their activity prostheses.

Although the trial will only run to the end of 2017-18, there are hopes that – if it proves a success – DH will extend the funding.

LimbPower, the national disability sports organisation for people with limb impairments, is supporting DH by alerting families to the fund’s existence and helping health professionals access it. 

Carly Bauert, children’s prostheses coordinator for LimbPower, whose nine-year-old son Oliver had a running blade fitted when he was six, said she hoped that more than 500 children would benefit during the two years of the trial.

She said she believed it would make “a huge difference” to the children who took part.

She said: “These are specialist activity limbs that are not normally available on the NHS.

“If you have a child who has an amputation or a congenital limb disorder, as a parent… not to be able to provide them with what they need to participate in as normal a childhood as possible is very, very hard.

“This is about inclusion and activity. Not all of our children are going to be Paralympians, but they all need to have an active childhood.”

She said the fund was helping one girl who wanted a prosthesis that would allow her to dance and “go up on her points”.

One concern is that if DH decides not to renew the fund next year, children that have benefited from the prostheses could be left without replacements when they grow out of them.

But Bauert said: “What we have got to show is that there is a demand and it is needed.

“As a mum of a prosthesis-wearing child who wears a blade, I am hopeful and very optimistic that with the right research and evidence we can show the government it is needed and required for these children.

“My little boy got his blade when he was six and it changed his life completely.

“It gave him confidence at school, with friends, he joined the rugby and football clubs, his confidence just grew. “

Richard Whitehead, a double leg amputee and double Paralympic 200 metres champion, said: “Having run thousands of miles on prosthetics myself I’m delighted to see the next generation take their first steps in experiencing the freedom of running, whether just for general enjoyment or towards achieving their own Paralympic ambitions.”

Hunt said: “Team GB [sic]* surpassed everyone’s expectations at last year’s Paralympics and this investment will ensure the next generation of children who have either been born without a limb or who have lost a limb will be able to lead an active life.

“It’s wonderful that the first children are now receiving their blades and that they will be able to reach their sporting potential – I hope some may even be selected in the future as members of Team GB [sic]. “

*Britain’s Paralympic team is known as ParalympicsGB. Team GB competes in the Olympics

Picture: 13-year-old Ben, from Brighton, one of the first children to benefit from the trial, being fitted with a running blade at Sussex Rehabilitation Centre at Brighton General Hospital

Share this post:

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

Tags: Department of Health Jeremy Hunt LimbPower Paralympics prosthetic limbs

Groundhog Day at the Old Vic, access performances, with icons for audio description, captions, relaxed performances and British Sign Language, and a picture of a groundhog

Related

‘Heartless’ reforms to disability benefits ‘defy logic’
16th March 2023
Hunt’s Autumn Statement ‘crumbs’ will ‘not be enough to prevent harm and deaths’
24th November 2022
Paralympians tell MPs of concerns over access to grassroots facilities
2nd December 2021

Primary Sidebar

Access

Latest Stories

DWP hands hundreds of millions more to firms linked to claimant deaths… but not Atos

Review finds multiple agencies failed over Whorlton Hall abuse scandal

Regulator tells government’s access advisers to act on unlawful secrecy

Government breaks pledge to consult on improvements to housing adaptations

Broadcaster’s silence over ‘rabblerouser’ tweet on disability benefits

Met’s mental health emergency warning ‘risks creating serious harm’

Call for direct action protests to build support for ‘radical’ social care reform

Disabled mum took her own life after actions of DWP and Capita ‘magnified’ anxiety

Public inquiry on inaccessible footbridge will be ‘line in the sand’, say activists

Thousands of disabled people tell MPs: Cost-of-living crisis is affecting our health

Advice and Information

Groundhog Day at the Old Vic, access performances, with icons for audio description, captions, relaxed performances and British Sign Language, and a picture of a groundhog
Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web