By Tim Worstall
This sounds distinctly non-optimal:
Disabled people in England ‘have to wait up to two years for wheelchairs’
We do grasp that wheelchairs are more than simply four wheels and a chair these days. Also that there’s more than a little personal optimisation dependent upon the specific disability being catered to. But they’re not that complicated.
Sussex launched an investigation into NHS wheelchair provision after a sharp rise in complaints – from eight in 2020-21 to 110 in 2025-26.
Four out of five relate to the handful of private firms that provide wheelchairs to at least half of all children and adults who need one to help them lead independent lives.
There is competition for the trade so where is the problem? Why is it that it can take up to two years?
No, we don’t know either and it seems to us one of those things where we’d all like to know the answer. Our assumption is that the problem is with the monopoly, the NHS. We significantly doubt that privately purchased wheelchairs - whatever the level of optimisation required - take two years to turn up.
As a vague guess at the problem we’d suggest that the NHS does not pay for timely delivery. Contracts are not let out on the basis of when something will turn up. Thus there is no incentive to ensure timely delivery on those NHS contracts, nor placing of the business by the NHS upon the basis of delivery times. We’d go that one stage further too - if the NHS paid for timely delivery then we’re really very certain indeed that delivery times would improve.
As we say, we don’t know but that’s what we suspect. Anyone with detailed knowledge here is heartily invited to educate us on the point.
We’d also mutter something about anyone who’s made a pile and is wondering how to give it away to the benefit of society. Forget writing cheques to this or that NGO and set up - heck, buy out an extant - an NHS wheelchair supplier. A proper dose of salts through that supply chain would benefit society, no?