NHS handles over 200,000 wheelchair requests a year

THE NUMBER OF people in England who were referred to the NHS wheelchair service in 2024 is roughly the same as the number of people who live in Northampton. What is the NHS wheelchair service?

If you need a mobility aid such as a walking stick or a zimmerframe, you can buy one from a shop – or you may be able to borrow one from the NHS at no charge. According to the NHS, walking sticks usually cost £5 to £30, and zimmerframes can cost from £40 to £200 if you buy them commercially.

On how to get an NHS wheelchair, the NHS website is rather coy. You may be able to get one from the NHS, or you may get a voucher to help with the cost of buying your own – which all makes it sound like provision of wheelchairs is means-tested. Other information on the NHS website refers to national or local help you may be able to get to manage the cost.

EMS lifts is the company that did the calculations about wheelchair need. The number of referrals in London ws 30,397: that’s 14% of the total. It is not clear if this reflects need: a high percentage of East Londoners live in flats which may not be wheelchair accessible, which my hold up referrals. Being referred for a wheelchair may well mean that you have to move before you can get it, which could add considerably to the delay.

The highest number of referrals in London was in the North West, followed by Central London. North East London came next, followed by South East and South West London.

Greg Muir of EMS Lifts, which reported the figures, said that the figures showed a high need for wheelchairs. “The data also showed that out of 167 care boards, 148 of them have now moved to offer patients personal wheelchair budgets. This is an important step for the service, as it allows people to have more control and agency. This can be incredibly valuable for them when dealing with something as personal as their own mobility.”

This sounds very friendly, and EMS Lifts are a family firm and they are probably a friendly firm to. However, there are problems with personal payments. Giving someone money to go out and buy their own wheelchair leaves them at the mercy of the market – in terms of what is available and the price of purchase, maintenance and ongoing repair.

Personal payments are also a kind of privatisation, which could lead to job cuts. Instead of having a skilled team in an NHS body or a Council which can advise new and returning users and advocate for them, an accountant can just post out cheques to everyone and leave them to it. Wheelchair users then have to rely for advice on the company they are buying the wheelchair from, which is hardly independent.

In either case, the sting in the tail is that while wheelchairs are provided, direct or via personal payments, by privately owned companies and big businesses, the purchase price for a wheelchair will include an element of profit for the provider. This is yet another example of the NHS being used as a conduit for public money to be channelled into the private sector.

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