Mobility Equipment Safety Notices: 12 Months of MHRA Data

Published 19 October 2026

Main finding: between November 2025 and early October 2026, MHRA listed 480 field safety notices from medical device makers. We read every one. Fifteen concerned mobility or daily-living equipment used at home or in care: five patient hoists, one hoist sling, five powered wheelchairs or power add-ons, two mobility scooters, one bath lift and one range of paediatric care beds. None concerned a stairlift, rollator, riser recliner or personal alarm.

Last checked: 19 October 2026. We read the 49 weekly field safety notice pages MHRA published on GOV.UK for the period 10 November 2025 to 9 October 2026, and counted every notice listed. Product names below are as MHRA lists them.

Who this is for: anyone who owns, uses or looks after a hoist, powerchair, scooter, bath lift or care bed, and anyone about to buy one second-hand.

Contents

• What a field safety notice is
• The numbers
• Every mobility notice in the period
• How to check your own equipment
• Buying second-hand
• What this data does not show
• Method
• Questions people ask

What a field safety notice is

A field safety notice (FSN) is a letter a manufacturer sends to customers when it finds a problem with a medical device already in use. It usually explains the fault and what to do: stop using the product, check a part, wait for an engineer, or install an update. Wheelchairs, scooters, hoists and care beds are regulated as medical devices, so their makers use this route.

MHRA republishes the notices each week on GOV.UK. Its own wording is direct: “If you receive a field safety notice (FSN) from a manufacturer you must always act on it.” MHRA says it publishes them “for information only” and that questions about a notice should go to the manufacturer.

A notice is not a finding that a product is unsafe in general. It is the maker telling owners about a specific issue, often limited to certain models, batches or serial numbers. Publishing one is what a responsible manufacturer is expected to do.

The numbers

Hoists and powered chairs make up two thirds of the mobility notices. Both have motors, batteries, electronics and load-bearing parts, which gives a maker more to monitor than a walking frame. A count of notices says nothing about how many products are affected or how serious each issue is. One notice can cover a single batch or several models.

Every mobility notice in the period

Sorted by type. Each MHRA page links to the manufacturer’s own notice, which explains the issue and what owners should do. “Notice date” is the date shown against the notice on the MHRA listing, which is often earlier than the week MHRA published it.

Two Permobil notices appear in the period, in December 2025 and September 2026, both involving Corpus seating. The listings alone do not say whether the second follows on from the first.

How to check your own equipment

1. Find the model name and serial number. On powerchairs and scooters this is usually a label under the seat or on the frame. On hoists it is normally on the mast or base.
2. Look the model up in the table above, then open the MHRA weekly page and the manufacturer’s notice linked from it. Check whether your serial number or batch is covered.
3. If it is, do what the notice says. If anything is unclear, contact the manufacturer or the supplier who sold or services the product. MHRA asks for questions to go to the manufacturer.
4. If you have equipment on loan from the NHS wheelchair service or the council’s community equipment service, contact the service that issued it. Notices usually go to the organisation that bought the item, not to the person using it.
5. If your equipment has a fault that is not covered by a notice, you can report it to MHRA through the Yellow Card scheme. MHRA says “Anyone can report an issue with a medical device”.
6. To see future notices, GOV.UK lets you sign up for email alerts from the MHRA alerts page.

Notices normally reach owners through the supplier’s customer records. If you bought privately, moved house or bought second-hand, the maker may have no way to contact you. Registering the product with the manufacturer closes that gap.

Buying second-hand

A used hoist, powerchair or scooter may be covered by a notice its previous owner never acted on. Before you pay:

• Ask for the model and serial number, and check them against the MHRA pages and the maker’s notice.
• Ask whether any manufacturer updates or repairs were carried out, and for paperwork.
• Ask the manufacturer or an authorised dealer whether any open actions apply to that serial number.
• For hoists and slings, ask when the last thorough examination was done. In workplaces and care settings, lifting equipment for people must be thoroughly examined at least every six months under the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER). HSE gives the interval as “6 months, for lifting equipment and any associated accessories used to lift people.”

Our guide to buying a used mobility scooter covers the other checks worth making.

What this data does not show

• It covers field safety notices only. MHRA also issues national patient safety alerts and device safety information, which we did not count here.
• Some products used by older and disabled people are not medical devices. Recalls of those, such as some general household products, are published separately by the Office for Product Safety and Standards.
• A notice count is not a safety ranking. A brand with no notices is not shown to be safer, and a brand with one is not shown to be less safe. Makers with more products on the market have more opportunities to issue notices.
• MHRA listings give the product and maker but not always the device type. We left out notices where the listing did not make clear that the item was mobility or daily-living equipment, so the true count may be slightly higher.
• We did not test any product.

Method

We opened every weekly field safety notice page MHRA published on GOV.UK for the period 10 to 14 November 2025 through 9 October 2026 (49 pages), counted each notice listed, and recorded every notice concerning wheelchairs, powerchairs, scooters, stairlifts and home lifts, hoists and slings, transfer and standing aids, care and profiling beds, bed rails, pressure-care products, bathing and toileting aids, walking aids, riser recliners, ramps and personal alarms. Clinical and hospital devices were excluded. Product names are taken from the MHRA listing. The full dataset is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page.

We will update this page each quarter. If you are a manufacturer and spot an error in how a notice is described, email hello@reviewmobility.co.uk and we will correct it. No manufacturer paid to appear on or be left off this page, and none saw it before publication.

Questions people ask

Has my mobility scooter been recalled?

Two scooter notices were listed by MHRA in the 12 months to early October 2026: the Scoozy Sterling S800 and the One Rehab Illusion. If yours is another model, there was no field safety notice for it in that period. Check with the maker if you are unsure.

Are there any stairlift safety notices in 2026?

None appeared in the MHRA field safety notice listings we read, covering November 2025 to early October 2026.

What should I do if I get a field safety notice letter?

Act on it, as MHRA advises. Follow the instructions in the letter, and contact the manufacturer if you have questions or if the equipment is in daily use and the notice tells you to stop.

Who tells me if my NHS wheelchair is affected?

The wheelchair service that issued it holds the records and should contact you. If you see your model listed, ring the service and ask.

Sources

• MHRA field safety notices, weekly pages on GOV.UK, 10 November 2025 to 9 October 2026 (49 pages; the pages for each notice are linked in the table): GOV.UK drug and device alerts. Read 19 October 2026.
• HSE, thorough examination of lifting equipment: hse.gov.uk. Read 19 October 2026.
• MHRA Yellow Card scheme: yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk. Read 19 October 2026.

This page reports what manufacturers and MHRA have published. It is not safety advice for any individual product. If you are unsure whether equipment is safe to use, stop and contact the manufacturer or the service that supplied it. Review Mobility is an independent directory and does not sell equipment.

Published 19 October 2026