Wheelchair Users

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will introduce uniform standards and a national tariff payment in order to achieve high-quality outcomes for wheelchair users.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Prior of Brampton) (Con)]

My Lords, NHS England is developing a national dataset to ensure transparency about the quality of services in order to drive improvement. NHS England and NHS Improvement are actively working with the sector to define the currencies and reference costs that will enable national tariffs to be set.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord will know that the wheelchair alliance, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, has shown that we have, essentially, a set of dysfunctional local wheelchair services with variations in access, standards and waiting times. The noble Lord has referred to a national specification but the reality is that, unless he can ensure that it is mandated at local level we will not get high-quality, consistent services. Will Ministers be prepared to meet the wheelchair alliance to discuss how we can get uniform, high-quality standards at local level?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Lord is right: the variation in wheelchair standards around the country is wholly unacceptable. The truth is that we do not know the level of this variation because we have never collected the data before. The data are now collected and, of course, I can answer yes to his question. In fact, my honourable friend in the other place is making an announcement on 18 May, I think, about the support we are going to provide to local CCGs over wheelchair provision. I am sure that I can speak for him and say that he will be delighted to meet the wheelchair alliance.