RWK Goodman & Proactive Prosthetics – the Team Around The Client
Ben Lees and Louise Hart from our Injury team recently visited Proactive Prosthetics, a Bristol based provider of expert prosthetic and orthotic care enabling individuals to attain their goals through high-intensity treatment.
When someone close to you suffers a life-changing injury as a result of negligence, we aim to build a network of specialists around them to support their claim for compensation and their life going forward. This goal can only be achieved by gaining an intimate understanding of the client, their pre and post-injury personality, needs, ambitions, interests, responsibilities and relationships. We aim to be accessible at all times which we achieve through working in a distinct team with the client and their family.
Through our approach to building a “Team Around the Client“, we’ve been able to work with brilliant organisations such as the Bristol based Proactive Prosthetics.
On our visit to their Bristol clinic we were able to sit down with Alan McDougall, Clinical Director/Clinical Specialist Prosthetist, and learn more about how exactly they work with amputees and are able to provide the support, experience and expertise each patient requires to achieve their goals following a life changing injury. We also got the chance to meet with one of their patients, Ifan Phillips – Ex-Ospreys Rugby & Wales Rugby player who lost his right leg above the knee in a motor bike accident, and spoke to him about how Proactive Prosthetics has been able to help him and the extent of their multidisciplinary approach to working with clients.
"A large portion of the patients that are referred here, they're quite often referred by their case manager or their solicitor and it's really, really important that as a clinician we have a good relationship with those solicitors.
One - that solicitor is going to be with that patient for a couple of years throughout the process of that claim and two - we need to be able to convey what we are doing to that solicitor because that information is going to impact on how that claim is going to progress so we're not only helping the patient from a clinical point of view we’re hopefully helping the Solicitor work out what's the needs of this patient going to be over the course of their lifetime and that can really impact how they can put a valuation to that claim."
"Proactive has been massive in my journey getting, excuse the pun, back on my feet - they've been a massive help.
When I first lost my leg, I was very unsure of the process of trying to rebuild my life and getting back to being as active as I can. Proactive has been very informative about everything, they've talked me through everything that I need and the process of being able to be a very good prosthetic user. Luckily for me with the technology that's at hand with this prosthetic leg I've been able to more or less go back to as normal a life as I once had."
Why Bristol?
Our Team Around the Client approach makes us passionate about improving the quality of life of our clients through the management of compensation. This combined with our long-term commitment to the South West region and most recently the opening of our Bristol Office means we’re always looking to learn more about and subsequently partner with those Bristol based organisations that are making a difference in their clients lives.
Ben Lees is a Partner in our Medical Negligence team and has a particular expertise in cases involving spinal, brain and amputation injuries. We asked him: Why Bristol?
"Why Bristol?
Because it's a centre of excellence for research and development into prosthetic technology - all the work being done at the University of the West of England, by the mechanical engineering department, but also because there's an existing network of individuals and organizations that are on hand to help people with amputations.
There's Proactive Prosthetics, which already have a large and dedicated site in Bristol now, there's the Limbless Association with their lunch and learn sessions and support and community hubs, and also the Bristol Centre for Enablement withg the work that they're doing to with prosthetics and orthotics and also making Bristol an accessible city for those who have suffered amputations."
Team Around the Client Magazine
Read our Team Around the Client Magazine.
