Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of wheelchair provision services in Derbyshire.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for the provision and commissioning of local wheelchair services, and NHS England supports ICBs to commission effective, efficient, and personalised wheelchair services.

Since July 2015, NHS England has collected quarterly data from clinical commissioning groups, now ICBs, on wheelchair provision, including waiting times, to enable targeted action if improvement is required.

NHS England is taking steps to reduce regional variation in the quality and provision of NHS wheelchairs, and to support ICBs to reduce delays in people receiving timely intervention and wheelchair equipment. This includes publishing a Wheelchair Quality Framework on 9 April 2025 which sets out quality standards and statutory requirements for ICBs, such as offering personal wheelchair budgets. The framework is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/wheelchair-quality-framework/

Local authorities in England have a statutory duty under various legislations, including the Care Act 2014, and the Children and Families Act 2014, to make arrangements for the provision of disability aids and community equipment, including wheelchair provision, to meet the assessed eligible needs of individuals who are resident in their area. Some local authorities deliver this themselves, but a significant number have external contracts for an integrated community equipment service.

On 1 April 2025, the NHS Derby and Derbyshire ICB appointed Blatchford Ltd to run wheelchair services.

The NHS Derby and Derbyshire ICB provided additional funding to address the most clinically urgent, long-standing patients that are waiting for a wheelchair and is monitoring with Blatchford on a weekly basis. There are, however, still 1,000 long-standing patients currently waiting for a wheelchair.

The NHS Derby and Derbyshire ICB has put in place a clinical priority plan developed jointly between the NHS Derby and Derbyshire ICB and Blatchford Ltd to address long-standing patients. As of Mid-November 2025, with regard to long-standing patients waiting for a wheelchair, there has been a 56% deduction in adults and a 54% reduction in children and young people. The ICB continues to work through the remaining patients.