Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many mobility products, such as electrically powered wheelchairs, have been included in the last five years in the annual report on research and development work required by section 22 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Act 1970; and how many of these devices have been monitored and come to market via the NHS.

The report Research and development work relating to assistive technology: 2024 to 2025 is updated each year to reflect newly funded research. It is published annually in December, with data curated by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) in collaboration with other Government funders.

The report is updated annually to cover developments in priority setting and funding, current and planned funding schemes, and national action plans or service changes to improve the use of assistive technology. It also includes recommendations to inform future assistive technology research and planned work arising from funded projects. The relevant Government funders are responsible for monitoring the projects listed in the report. Ministerial responsibility for monitoring and uptake sits with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health Innovation and Safety.

NIHR Open Data is a website managed by the NIHR, the research arm of the Department, to promote the transparency and accessibility of NIHR-funded research.

Since 2023, NIHR Open Data has hosted the Assistive Technologies dataset, which allows funded studies to be filtered by assistive technology research ‘focus areas’. The NIHR does not hold data on how many mobility products have been monitored or subsequently adopted by the National Health Service. The NIHR Open Data dataset is available as supplementary material to the statutory report and can be searched, filtered, and downloaded. Further information is available on the NIHR’s website.