After an assessment, if you are eligible to receive a wheelchair from the NHS, you will have a personal wheelchair budget. This is a ‘virtual’ amount of money allocated to meet your assessed clinical needs.
It is designed to give you more choice over your wheelchair, one which meets your assessed needs and any specific requirements you identify as being important to you.
You can decide to use your personal wheelchair budget in the following ways:
Notional Personal Wheelchair Budget: (Which you do not have to pay for)
Use your personal wheelchair budget within NHS services. Accept the NHS wheelchair prescribed for you.
This will be supplied, repaired, and maintained by the NHS at no charge to you. It remains property of the NHS and must be returned when it is no longer needed.
Notional Plus Personal Wheelchair Budget: (Contribute to your NHS Wheelchair)
Use your personal wheelchair budget within NHS services and add a contribution to upgrade or add extra features to the wheelchair prescribed for you. During your assessment, the wheelchair therapy staff will offer you advice and support to do this.
The amount of your personal wheelchair budget is how much it would cost the NHS to provide a wheelchair to meet your clinical needs, and you pay the difference between this amount and the cost of the wheelchair and/or extra features you have chosen.
Another agency/organisation could support you with this.
With this option, the wheelchair remains the property of the NHS and will be maintained by the Wheelchair Service.
You will be responsible for any replacement costs of these extra features. You are required to return the wheelchair when it is no longer needed.
Third Party Personal Wheelchair Budget: (Access a Wheelchair from Outside the NHS)
Use your personal wheelchair budget to access a new wheelchair of your choice from an independent supplier outside of the NHS.
This option is only available when the wheelchair therapy team agree this is clinically appropriate for you to do this.
The amount of your personal wheelchair budget is how much it would cost the NHS to provide a wheelchair to meet your clinical needs, and we will give you a contribution towards the cost of repair and maintenance of your chosen wheelchair.
If you choose a wheelchair which costs more than the amount of your personal wheelchair budget, you will have to meet the additional cost yourself. Another charity/organisation could support you with this.
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