Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of collecting data centrally about levels of (a) reuse and (b) discard of NHS equipment.

The Department published the inaugural Medical Technology Strategy in February 2023, which included a focus on improving resource efficiency. The Department is working with industry, the health and care sector, and academic partners to develop medical technology systems that support reuse, remanufacture, and material recovery, by default. The Department is exploring options for reuse, remanufacture, and material recovery in medical devices, through its Design for Life programme. This includes developing regulatory, commercial, and infrastructure and policy environments that support these aims. As part of the programme, the Department recognises we will need to define future data requirements, and align digital infrastructure to improve the gathering of core data.

NHS England has developed a waste planning tool for all National Health Service providers, consistent with the Clinical Waste Strategy, which includes improved waste segregation, minimisation, and increased reuse programmes. This will lead to reductions in the road miles the waste travels, increases in the use of re-usable sharps bins, and furthers plans made towards the achievement of Net Zero Carbon from waste management.

NHS England has an ambition to expand existing walking aid refurbishment schemes. Arrangements for the return and reuse of walking aids are managed locally, and a number of NHS trusts already have local return and reuse schemes, with over 200 return sites now featured on the Recycle Now website. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.recyclenow.com/recycle-an-item/walking-aids