Wheelchairs: Health Services
(asked on 6th February 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to ensure that NHS organisations and contracted wheelchair service providers are subject to more rigorous, mandatory regulation.
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for the provision and commissioning of local wheelchair services, based on the needs of their local population. NHS England supports ICBs to commission effective, efficient, and personalised wheelchair services and 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. The framework is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/wheelchair-quality-framework/
NHS England also introduced personal wheelchair budgets, including legal rights in 2019, providing a clear framework for ICBs to commission personalised wheelchair services which are outcomes focused and integrated. Personal wheelchair budgets give people greater choice over the wheelchair provided.
Since July 2015, NHS England has collected quarterly data from ICBs on wheelchair provision, including waiting times, to enable targeted action if improvement is required. The latest figures from the Quarter 2 2025/26 National Wheelchair Data Collection showed that 84% of adults and 78% of children received their equipment within 18 weeks. Further information on the National Wheelchair Data Collection is available at the following link:
The Medium-Term Planning Framework sets a requirement for all providers and ICBs to actively manage long waits for community health services reducing the proportion of all waits over 18 weeks. This will be monitored via the NHS’s usual regional and national assurance processes.
The Community Health Services Situation Report, which will be used to monitor ICB performance against waiting time targets in 2026/27, currently monitors waiting times for both children and young people, and adult waiting times under the ‘Wheelchair, Orthotics, Prosthetics and Equipment’ line. These targets will guide systems to reduce the longest waits, and improvement initiatives to meet these targets may affect waits that are over 18-weeks and 52-weeks.