Prosthetics for Amputees

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Mackinlay of Richborough for securing this debate. I also pay tribute to him for his courage in the various battles he has faced in recent years, and for his determination to come back and return to public life. I have to say that I am simply in awe of him, but I hope that does not come across as patronising or putting him on a pedestal either. Based on his own experience, he is fighting for the causes dear to him, and he can talk about it in a meaningful way based on his own experience.

I also thank my noble friend Lord Shinkwin for warning us about placing disabled people on a pedestal, something that I think we ought to be aware of, and for adding the issue of orthotics to this debate, which is very important. I thank my noble friend Lord McColl for explaining his experience. I think in those days the official term was artificial limbs, when he worked on that group, when asked by the Prime Minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, for sharing her experience based on diabetes and living with someone with diabetes.

I have two early experiences of prosthetics or artificial limbs—whatever language it was, given that I was born in the late 1960s—and one is storybooks and Long John Silver. In some ways, from what my noble friend Lord Mackinlay said, the service has not really moved on from that. We talk about Captain Hook and people are still being asked to have hooks. The second experience was a friend of my brother who was deaf and had type 1 diabetes. During the time we knew her she went blind, lost limbs and sadly died far too early. I really relate to the point the noble Baroness made. One of the issues for all type 1 diabetics—I say that, having a type 1 diabetic in my family—is to look after your limbs and the extremities of your body and get regular check-ups, as well as controlling and monitoring sugar.

Having heard the speakers, I think this is a matter of both policy and principle. Ensuring that amputees receive timely and appropriate prosthetics is more than simply a healthcare issue; it is a matter of dignity, independence and fairness. Those who require access to these services are those who have faced illness, trauma and those who may have suffered injuries while serving their country in many ways. My noble friend rightly raised the issues with current NHS provision of prosthetics. In this speech, I will look at two main challenges.

First, there is the issue of the workforce, which seems ironic; I see a smile from the Minister. As my noble friend said, skilled prosthetists are not being replaced quickly enough. The provision of high-quality prosthetic care is heavily reliant on a skilled workforce. I thank my noble friend for going into the details and making us all understand the importance of that. My noble friend highlighted training deficits in the field of prosthetics and orthotics. Noble Lords will know that Health Education England has acknowledged these challenges and is working to improve the education and training of prosthetists and orthotists.

I remember, when I was a Minister, the noble Baroness who is now the Minister and others rightly raised issues about the workforce and workforce planning. After pressure from noble Lords at the time, including from the noble Baroness who is now the Minister, the previous Government eventually published the NHS Long Term Plan to address some of these workforce challenges. But in this area, if we look at the numbers, the baseline training intake for 2022 was 57. The workforce plan looked to increase that to 89 per intake. It identified that between 25% and 50% of prosthetists could be trained via the apprenticeship route as part of an expansion of apprenticeships for allied health professionals. This is, as anyone can see, only part of the solution, and there is always more that needs to be done.

Can I ask the Minister to inform noble Lords how the Government will build on some of that work? Going from 57 to 89 clearly, for many, is not enough. What work is being done and what thought is being given to increasing that capacity and to making it an attractive career? One hears about the latest technology being used, such as computer aided design, so maybe there is a way of attracting the best engineering students who may never have thought about going into that career. They may have thought about designing cars or aeroplanes, but they might realise that they could put their skills to good use in improving the health, well-being and mobility of many of our citizens.

I know that the 10-year plan is going to be published at some stage. I am not necessarily asking the Minister to tell us what is in the plan, but does she know what consideration is being given to this specific area in the plan? If so, can she share that with the Committee at the moment?

The second issue to highlight, clearly, is inequality of care. Concerns have been raised. Some noble Lords have raised their concerns around a postcode lottery of care for amputees; others have raised other issues. As noble Lords have said, there have been innovations in the technology and expansions in access. Other noble Lords have referred to the NHS providing multi-grip bionic arms since 2022, using electrical impulses from the brain to control movement and representing what is considered the cutting edge of that technology.

However, we have to confront a painful irony: we can have the best technology out there but it is not much good if people cannot get it in the first place or have to jump through a number of hoops to do so. My noble friend Lord Mackinlay spoke about the stages that one has to go through before qualifying for the very latest technology; I wonder whether we can look at those. Is there a cost involved in patients going through all those stages? Could getting them to that final stage be more cost effective? Hopefully, the technology is always evolving anyway, but could we get them to the last stage quicker, rather than them having to jump through all those stages? Is there a way of making it more efficient?

As my noble friend Lord McColl said, it is about looking at the best technology in the world. Rather oddly, I remember a very interesting man I met. He used to be the rabbi of Richmond Synagogue, and he and I got on very well. As a sideline, he started a business based on the latest Israeli technology on prosthetics. In the end, the rabbi gave up, and he and his company developed to sell prosthetics based on Israeli technology to countries in central Asia. I noticed that he is still doing that; it just shows that there is really good technology around the world. It is great that Britain could be at the leading edge, I hope, but it is important that, when you need these devices—limbs or prosthetics—you get the latest ones. It is all very well us being proud of them being built in Britain or whatever, but surely it is better to get the latest technology.

We also understand—this is one of the challenges that we faced in government—the issues of funding for a trained workforce and the extra, increasing demands on health and social care. How do we challenge those? We know that, for example, veterans have in many cases been able to receive care due to dedicated funding streams—we pay tribute to those programmes and support both their continuation and their strengthening—but we have to ask: what can be done for civilians? What can be done for children and the elderly, who face longer-term waits or limited options? In one region, an amputee may receive a personalised limb with integrated sensors; in another, in certain circumstances, they might wait months for a basic replacement. Do the Government know about or understand the reasons for some of these disparities? Have they looked into disparities and understood them, or is it simply about having the workforce in the right area? Is it about the way in which resources are allocated? What steps are the Government taking to reduce some of this unequal geographic access to prosthetics? One of the challenges when I was a Health Minister was that there were always health variances. In some cases, they were the same for all types of health, but, in other cases, it was specific to a particular health or care issue.

This is not just about prosthetics and orthotics; it is also about opportunity. It is about having the ability to walk your child to school or to return to work. It is about having the ability not just to live but to survive—indeed, to thrive—having gone through a very traumatic experience. It is important, whatever our politics, that we think about how we can empower individuals to live their fullest lives. For amputees, that power begins with access to the right limb or limbs at the right time and with the right support. Our amputees deserve no less.

I look forward to the response from the Minister.