Campaigning

Wheelchair Provision

There are an estimated 1.2 million wheelchair users in England, many of whom have a spinal cord injury. The wheelchairs supplied by the NHS frequently fail to meet the essential, every day needs of those who use them - 60% of people with spinal cord injury discard their NHS wheelchair in favour of a privately purchased one within the first year. An addittional 30% of the remaining NHS wheelchairs within 18 months. The majority of people who opt to fund their own mobility equipment - sometimes with the help of a grant from the Aspire Human Needs Fund - do so because their NHS wheelchairs are not capable of providing independence.

Wheelchair provision is frequently overlooked, yet the equipment provided has the capacity to significantly affect quality of life - get it wrong and life chances, participation in education, work and leisure activities and opportunities to carry out day to day tasks are dramatically diminished. The knock-on effects are long lasting and have wide reaching implications for both the individual and the state.

The Department of Health is well aware of many of the issues with wheelchair provision and recently produced a report detailing recommendations for change. There is also a programme that is due to report back to the Minister in October 2007, detailing a sound business model for change; Aspire has ensured that our views have fed into these processes. These reports and programmes are a welcome and much needed move, but reports and recommendations alone will not improve the frequently dire situation. Until there is a concerted effort to improve provision, both from central government and from service commissioners, tens of thousands of wheelchair users will continue to have to purchase their own wheelchair or face a life with little or no independence.

If wheelchair users are not to face the barriers that exist at the moment, there needs to be full commitment to the implementation of the recommendations in the Department of Health's Out and About report. Furthermore, and specifically, Aspire would like to see:

  • Wheelchair provision benchmarked against specific targets
  • Common eligibility criteria in place to ensure that geographical inequalities are removed
  • Wheelchair assessment and provision to be subject to a delivery programme timeframe
  • Wheelchair Services to work closer with Spinal Cord Injury Centre Occupational Therapists in assessing patients' needs