Maria recently visited the Basingstoke headquarters of Blatchford, a world leading manufacturer of prosthetics and orthotics.

She met CEO Adrian Stenson, Technical Director Professor Saeed Zahedi, and Head of Marketing Helen Clark. She toured the factory at the Houndmills site, and was shown the newest development, Linx, which is the first fully integrated lower limb system with microprocessor control.

Maria commented: “It was great to catch up with new developments at Blatchford, and to hear about the way in which their products can make such an enormous difference to amputees’ lives.

“It is also a great pleasure to visit such a successful precision engineering and manufacturing company based in Basingstoke and encouraging to hear that they are able to recruit skilled people locally for many of the roles, including through apprenticeships.”