Wheelchair Suppliers Lobby Government for Law Change

SUPPLIERS of some latest generation powered-wheelchairs are lobbying the government over laws preventing disabled children benefitting from them because of safety concerns.

The highly functional powerchairs are currently off-limits to young people under 17 with severe mobility problems because their heavy weight means they are classified as cars and are therefore illegal to be driven by children.

In response, some suppliers of the chairs, such as Etac UK and Newlife, alongside charities which helped fund them, are lobbying the minister for disabled people Maria Miller to get the law changed.

Frances Leckie, editor of online community website Independent Living, which revealed the action in its latest newsletter, said: “For families with a youngster who has a degenerative condition, such as muscular dystrophy, the idea that they are prevented from using a wonderful mobility aid that could help them participate more fully in life at school and at home, because of a ridiculously pointless rule, must be painful in the extreme.”

“For many, it will be too late by the time they are 17.”