Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that NHS and care sector equipment is (a) returned and reused or (b) recycled after use.

In October 2024 the Department published the Design for Life roadmap, a new strategy to transition away from all avoidable single-use medical technology (medtech) products towards a functioning circular system by 2045. This means designing, procuring, and processing medtech products and devices in a way that enables reuse, remanufacture, or recycling, thus preserving their value for as long as possible. The document sets out a plan of 30 actions to deliver the 2045 vision, which involve:

- driving positive behavioural change;

- exploring new commercial incentives to provide circular medtech;

- creating new standards to enable innovative products and services;

- planning the decontamination and recycling infrastructure of the future; and

- establishing new collaborations to accelerate the emergence of transformative science.

The Design for Life Roadmap is available at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/679ca015a9ee53687470a2ed/design-for-life-roadmap.pdf