Northern Territory's Equipment Program helps residents access mobility aids

What is the background?

Mobility equipment — wheelchairs, walking frames, hospital beds, and similar aids — is often expensive to buy outright, and needs can change as a person’s condition changes. Disability equipment access Alice Springs support combines a government-funded programme with long-running local suppliers to cover both purchase and short-term hire needs.

What happened?

The Territory Equipment Program (TEP) helps NT residents who need prescribed equipment, aids, and appliances to keep participating in everyday activities. Approved health professionals apply for equipment on behalf of their clients, rather than requiring residents to navigate the funding process alone.

In Alice Springs specifically, Keep Moving — a Territory-based company operating for more than ten years — supplies, services, and hires mobility and disability equipment, giving residents a local option for both TEP-funded and privately arranged equipment needs.

How did it happen?

Requiring an approved health professional to apply for TEP funding means equipment is matched to an assessed clinical need rather than requested directly by the resident, similar in principle to the occupational-therapist assessment model used for home modifications elsewhere in Australia. This keeps funded equipment appropriate to the person’s actual condition and living situation.

Having a local supplier like Keep Moving servicing equipment in Alice Springs itself, rather than requiring residents to freight items to and from Darwin or interstate, matters in a town more than 1,500 kilometres from the nearest major city — a broken wheelchair or hospital bed can be repaired locally rather than leaving a resident without equipment for weeks during transit.

Why does it matter?

For remote and regional Northern Territory residents, distance from major cities can turn a routine equipment repair or replacement into a weeks-long wait if there’s no local servicing option. A decade-plus of continuous local operation from a company like Keep Moving means Alice Springs residents have that local option already established, not something that would need to be built from scratch.

Government-funded equipment access through TEP, combined with a local commercial supplier for equipment outside TEP’s scope, gives residents more than one pathway to get the mobility aids they need.

What were the key results?

• Territory Equipment Program funds prescribed mobility aids and disability equipment for NT residents
• Applications made by approved health professionals on behalf of clients
• Keep Moving has supplied and serviced mobility equipment in the NT for more than 10 years
• Local Alice Springs servicing avoids weeks-long freight delays for repairs
• Multiple registered NDIS disability service providers also operate in Alice Springs
• TEP model mirrors clinical-assessment-based equipment funding used elsewhere in Australia
• Combination of government funding and local commercial supply covers a wider range of needs

What happens next?

The NT Government plans to continue funding TEP applications as demand grows across the Territory.

Keep Moving and other Alice Springs equipment suppliers are expected to continue expanding servicing capacity locally.

NDIS-registered providers in Alice Springs are expected to keep coordinating with TEP for clients who need both funding streams.

The NT Government said it will review TEP scope and funding levels as part of its ongoing disability services planning.