Barbara has pledged to back disability campaigners in their fight for better wheelchair services.

Barbara attended an event in Westminster to listen to muscle disease patients and their carers about the problems they have experienced in getting funding for a wheelchair suited to their needs. Barbara met campaigners from nearby Farnworth who told her of the cost and difficulty involved in getting a suitable wheelchair.

A recent report published by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign has uncovered a postcode lottery in wheelchair services that means some patients have to wait months longer for a wheelchair than others sometimes just a few miles down the road. There are also vast differences in the amount of funding offered towards paying for a wheelchair, leaving many patients many thousands of pounds out of pocket.

Barbara said:

“I was very concerned to learn of the challenges that patients and their families face in trying to get a wheelchair to suit their needs. I am backing their campaign and I will work to raise the issue of how to improve wheelchair services for patients in Worsley and Eccles South and across the country.”

Barbara with members of the North West Muscle Group from Farnworth, North West Clinician Dr Christian de Goede and fellow Labour MP Julie Hilling.