Medical Equipment: Rehabilitation

(asked on 20th January 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of NHS reusable rehabilitation equipment that was supplied to patients for home use and then never returned in each of the last five years.


Answered by
Edward Argar Portrait
Edward Argar
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 26th January 2021

No estimate has been made of these costs, on the grounds that the costs of buying this equipment are below the costs of collecting equipment and making it safe for re-use. Rehabilitation and support equipment supplied to patients requires decontamination and stress testing before being used again by another patient. This is to maintain an appropriate level of infection control and to ensure that equipment for frail patients is safe to use.

Given the relatively low cost of this equipment, the expense of setting up a system to collect, assess, clean and recycle equipment would be greater than the cost of purchasing new equipment. Trusts are able to set their own policies on the reuse and recycling of equipment and NHS England and NHS Improvement support initiatives to increase reuse and recycling.

Reticulating Splines