Building the World’s First Evidence-Based Model for Scalable Amputee Care: The Blackbird Initiative
Today, millions of amputees still receive care based on outdated methods and decades-old assumptions. The programme’s goal is simple but ambitious: to generate the evidence needed to unlock faster, fairer, and more effective prosthetic care for everyone who needs it.
Across the world, amputees face significant challenges, including:
- Long waits for assessment and fitting
- Inconsistent care that varies widely by geography and available resources
- Outdated technology and painful, uncomfortable fittings
- High abandonment rates, particularly among children who quickly outgrow their sockets
Key barriers include cost, scalability, and the absence of an evidence-based global standard.
Traditional prosthetic sockets require skilled hand-casting, multiple visits, long delays, and expensive clinical infrastructure. This model fails in low-resource and crisis settings.
Despite these challenges, promising innovations already exist. Blackbird partners have supported more than 600 amputees to access next-generation, re-mouldable sockets that are faster, lighter, cheaper, and easier to fit. These technologies have the potential to transform global access — but only if rigorous scientific evidence demonstrates that they perform as well as, or better than, current gold-standard methods.
The Coeur Blanc Challenge – The Solution
The Coeur Blanc 2026 Challenge seeks to raise over £150,000 to fund the first controlled, university-led study comparing three prosthetic socket technologies:
- Hands-on sockets – the current NHS gold standard, created through traditional clinical casting
- Hands-off sockets – two next-generation, direct-on-patient systems, including thermoplastic and resin-based re-mouldable technologies
The 12–18 month programme will recruit up to 60 adult participants in the UK via NHS and charity partners. The study will assess:
- Mobility and functional performance
- Comfort and durability
- Clinical efficiency
- Cost-effectiveness
- Overall patient experience
Findings will help shape future NHS practice and improve paediatric and community prosthetic care worldwide.
Who Is Involved – The Blackbird Initiative & The Coeur Blanc Challenge
The Blackbird Initiative is a public-private partnership bringing together Imperial College London, the University of Strathclyde, the UK’s National Centre for Prosthetics & Orthotics (NCPO), the Centre for Doctoral Training in Prosthetics & Orthotics (CDT P&O), clinicians, engineers, innovators, and humanitarian partners.
Together, they aim to build the first global blueprint for equitable, scalable amputee care.
