Adaptations
If you have a disability or illness, which makes daily life more difficult, you may benefit from having your home adapted to help you carry on with your life independently.
Examples of adaptations include:
- Installing a stair-lift so that you can continue to use upstairs rooms
- Constructing a shower area which you can get into without a step
- Making a wheelchair ramp at the main entrance to your home
- Fixing grab rails, hand rails or stair rails to help you to move around safely
Getting Expert Help
You should get advice about possible adaptations from an occupational therapist (OT), who will know all the problems that can arise, and understand how your health condition may develop. You must do this if you want help with the costs.
Your care manager at Northumberland Care Trust can arrange for an OT to visit you. They aim for this to be within a week if you need adaptations urgently to meet critical needs, and within two months otherwise.
If you need help to cope while you wait for an adaptation, your care manager will discuss with you what short-term arrangements need to be made – for instance you might need support from home carers until work has been carried out on your home.
When the OT visits, they will discuss with you all the possible solutions to your problems. For instance there may be equipment, which would solve your problems better than adaptations to your home. If your home is very ill-suited to your needs, the OT may suggest that your best solution is to move.
If adaptations are the best solution, the OT will discuss with you in detail how these can be arranged.
Small Adaptations
The Care Trust can arrange directly small adaptations such as fixing a grab rail. There is no charge for this service. They have a set of rules which help decide if they can assist and do not normally fund adaptations which cost more than £250. They aim to complete work within three weeks of an OT recommendation.
Council Tenants
If you are a council tenant, the council may arrange adaptations on the recommendation of an OT. You will not have to pay for work the council does as a landlord.
The Council sets an annual budget to carry out adaptations to council properties for the elderly and disabled under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act. Individual cases and priorities are agreed in joint meetings between the Council and Northumberland Care Trust.
Some housing associations may also be willing to arrange adaptations on the same basis.
If the council or housing association are not able to do this, you can apply for a Disabled Facilities Grant.
Council Tenants - Planned Improvement Works
Where we are carrying out major improvement work to your home we will include any necessary adaptations that are required for anyone in the household who has a disability.
We employ our own Occupational Therapist who can assist in deciding what work needs to be done.
If work is planned at you home please let us know at the earliest opportunity so we can assess your requirements before the work starts. You can email the Procurement Unit or telephone 01670 542484.
Disabled Facilities Grants
If the person who is disabled depends on means-tested social security benefits (e.g. income support), grant will cover the full cost of approved works, up to a limit of £25,000. Otherwise, you may not be eligible, or may only get a grant to cover only part of the cost.
To estimate how much grant you might get,you should contact teh Council using the contact details given below for informal test of resources (though you have a right to make a full application at once if you wish). Your OT will ask the council to supply you with a form on which you can fill in details of your finances (or the council may arrange to visit you at home, or collect the information by phone). Once you have estimated figures, you can make an informed decision about whether to proceed.
If you decide to go ahead, the OT can help you to get quotes for the adaptations you need, and you will then have to fill in a full application. This will include the quotes and evidence about who the property belongs to and the basis on which you live there. You must confirm in writing that you intend to stay there for at least five years (you will not be penalised if your circumstances later change and you have to move, though you may be asked to return any equipment which has a continuing value).
Once you have submitted a correctly completed application, the Council must make a decision about grant within six months. If you start the work before hearing the Council’s decision about your application, you will not normally be paid any grant.
You can only get grant for the basic cost of the works needed, but you can top this up from your own money if you wish, for instance if you want a special finish or if you prefer to choose a more expensive builder or supplier than the cheapest quote.
Needs which qualify you for a Disabled Facility Grants
Whether you are eligible for grant depends on your needs. There are special rules about this. The council will only make a grant if your needs have been confirmed by an OT and if they believe that adaptations to your home are reasonable and practicable.
If these conditions are met, and you qualify under the means test, you may be offered a grant. You have a right to a grant if you need adaptations for one of the following purposes:
- Getting in and out of your home
- Ensuring that you are safe
- Getting access to your living room, and to a bedroom, kitchen, toilet, washbasin and bath or shower
- Getting a suitable heating system, or making heating controls and light switches easier to use
- Enabling you to care for someone else (for instance a child or a spouse)
Obtaining Equipment for independent living
Northumberland Care Trust also provides equipment to meet both social and health needs through its Community Equipment Service. This service delivers over 38,000 pieces of community equipment to people in Northumberland each year.
The equipment is provided on loan and there is no charge for the service. The equipment must be returned when it is no longer needed.
Purpose of the Service
The main purpose of the service is to provide equipment to allow people to live as independently as possible in their own home. Equipment can protect people from accidents, assist them with the tasks of daily life, and make it easier to provide care for them. It can also help people to move back home from hospital.
What the service provides
The service only provides equipment when a health or social care professional has confirmed that it is needed. Types of equipment provided include:
|
|
How to get equipment
Many different health and social care professionals can order equipment from the service. This includes care managers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, specialist social workers, district nurses and health visitors. If you think you would benefit from equipment, you should ask your care manager or any of these other professionals who you see.
Other ways to get equipment
You can also buy many kinds of equipment yourself – particularly smaller items which can make life easier. Two voluntary organisations which currently offer this service are:
- Disability North at the Dene Centre in Newcastle – phone (0191) 284 0480 for an appointment, or textphone (0191) 285 7261
- The Independability project in Morpeth – phone (01670) 515200
There are a number of private companies offering a similar service. Three of the larger local suppliers are:
- Rivington Mobility at Gosforth Shopping Centre – phone (0191) 284 8037
- Peacocks, St Thomas Street Newcastle – phone (0191) 232 9917
- Newcastle Mobility, 133 New Bridge Street – phone 0800 975 3878
Further Information
You can obtain further information from the following:
Technical Consultancy Unit, Blyth Valley Borough Council, Council Offices, Avenue Road, Seaton Delaval, NE25 0DX
Telephone: Technical Consultancy 01670 542363
EMail: Technical Consultancy
75 Marine Terrace
Blyth
Northumberland
NE24 2BX
Phone: 01670 542542