The Queen has congratulated staff at the country’s leading orthopaedic centre as it celebrates its 10th birthday.

The award-winning South West London Elective Orthopaedic Centre (EOC), which is run by Epsom, St Helier, Kingston, Croydon and St George’s hospitals but is based at Epsom, is the UK’s largest hip and knee replacement centre.

To mark its milestone anniversary, the Queen - who opened the EOC in 2004 - sent a special letter addressed to Sue King, the EOC’s director of nursing.

It said: "The Queen was pleased to learn of your good work over the past decade and has asked that her warmest good wishes be passed on to all members of staff at the EOC."

Steve Thomas, EOC director, said: "We are delighted the EOC has received a congratulatory birthday message from her Majesty.

"The EOC is an internationally recognised centre of excellence and achieved so much in the past 10 years.

"We hope to continue to offer such high standards of patient care to many more people over the next decade and beyond."

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The centre’s staff were recently presented with a birthday cake to enjoy from the caterers of Epsom Hospital, Aramark.

Ms King added: "We are all really enjoying the birthday celebrations, and truly believe it’s important to mark such a successful decade at the EOC. 

"We would like to thank the team at Aramark for providing such a wonderful cake."

The EOC conducts 95 per cent of the area’s spine, foot, ankle, hip, knee and shoulder work.  It has 65 beds and four state-of-the-art orthopaedic operating theatres.

In the last year, it performed more than 3,000 hip and knee replacements, had no incidents of MRSA cross-contamination; and achieved fifth place in the Healthcare 100 list, which is compiled by the Health Service Journal and Nursing Times.

The centre treats patients from the boroughs of Wandsworth, Merton, Sutton, Kingston, Richmond, and Epsom.

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