Twenty years ago I upped sticks and moved my private practice to The Hospital of St John & St Elizabeth. The London Foot & Ankle Centre (LFAC) opened in the first week of January 2003. Within a very short period I invited Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle surgeons and podiatrists who I knew to be outstanding to join me and LFAC expanded to cover central London and beyond.
LFAC is very much alive and well but we can’t match the marketing budgets of “The big beasts”. I like to think of LFAC as a” small boutique hotel” as opposed to a Hilton or for that matter a Travelodge! We believe in human interaction and our secretaries are always available to speak to.
Between the surgeons we cover all aspects of foot care including paediatrics, trauma and elective surgery as well as providing a medico-legal service used by many of London’s large law firms. When I seek medical attention for myself or my famiy I need to know that the person I am seeing cares and is trustworthy and offers the very best treatments. This is what LFAC aspires to and has done since its inception.
We seem to live in a world where media outlets want to frighten us about something or other all of the time and where large private hospital enterprises want to over-investigate, over-treat and often over-operate in the interests of profit. Of course the blurb says “not for profit” but anyone who believes this is probably, at best, an optimist!
As LFAC enters its third decade our emphasis remains as it always has been- high quality patient care with an emphasis on non-operative treatments whenever possible.
