Wheelchair and Community Equipment Strategy

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. I thank him, first, for securing this important debate; secondly, for his work on improving health outcomes, which he has been involved in for probably far longer than he cares to remember; and, thirdly, for choosing to champion wheelchair services, of which I should declare an interest as a user.

I trust his noble friend the Minister will bear in mind the noble Lord’s tenacity in her response, which we look forward to hearing, as we do the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Gerada. None of us will ever forget the trepidation with which we each faced the prospect of addressing your Lordships’ House for the first time. There may be issues which divide us, but the nerve-wracking experience of making our maiden speech, seared into each Member’s memory, surely unites us. I have no doubt that we will all be rooting for her.

I referred to the noble Lord’s tenacity. It is much needed, not least because, as he very helpfully outlined, the absence of a strategic approach on wheelchair services will be costing the NHS an awful lot of money—money it cannot afford to waste. So, in the little time I have, may I put three questions to the Minister?

The Minister will no doubt be familiar with the finding of the APPG for Access to Disability Equipment’s report that the community and medical equipment system is “in crisis” and with the Wheelchair Alliance’s recent report Wheelchair Provision: How to Drive Effective Change, which details the costly consequences of inadequate and inconsistent provision, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, mentioned. These include delays in hospital discharge, loss of independence, social isolation, with the inevitable impact on mental health, and, of course, avoidable deterioration in health and well-being—a point that the noble Lord made in his excellent speech. Would the Minister agree with me that “avoidable” is the key word here? Would she further agree that, if it is avoidable, then we are cutting our nose to spite our face if we allow ICBs to misrepresent as a saving what is actually in the strategic big picture a completely false economy, which is costing the NHS and indeed the taxpayer far too much money?

My third and last question is this. The second of three reports by Frontier Economics, The Value of a Wheelchair, estimated the potential value—I would say saving—that high-quality wheelchair provision could provide to wheelchair users and, crucially, society. Will the Minister undertake to put that thinking at the heart of any strategy? The current situation is untenable because it does not make economic sense. That is why the noble Lord’s call for a strategy deserves to be heard and acted upon urgently.