Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 8 July 2026 to Question 15027 on Wheelchairs: Children, what information his Department collects on the amount of under-18 year olds not prescribed a wheelchair or personal wheelchair budget after being seen by wheelchair services.

The information requested is not held centrally.

Since July 2015, NHS England has collected quarterly data from clinical commissioning groups, now integrated care boards (ICBs), on wheelchair provision, including waiting times, to enable targeted action if improvement is required. NHS England’s wheelchair data collection reports on the proportion of adults and children whose episode of care was closed in the reporting period and prescribed equipment was delivered within 18 weeks or less.

NHS England is supporting ICBs to reduce regional variation in the quality and provision of NHS wheelchairs, 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, such as offering personal wheelchair budgets. The framework is available at the following link:

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