Disabled facilities grants are available to adapt homes to enable disabled occupants to get into and around their property safely, to allow them access to suitable toilet and bathing facilities and to provide access to living and sleeping accommodation.
Typical grants involve the provision of stairlifts and altering bathrooms to provide level access shower facilities. More major schemes can involve building extensions to provide ground floor sleeping and bathing facilities.
An occupational therapist will assess the disabled person and recommend a scheme suitable to meet their needs. Plans and a specification are drawn up and estimates obtained for the work. Grants are means-tested, with some people getting the full cost of the work paid for (up to a maximum of £30,000), whilst others have to make a contribution towards the cost. Grants are available to owner-occupiers and tenants alike.
Please note that separate funding is available to adapt properties rented by tenants of Golden Gates Housing. These grants are not available to provide adaptations in commercial or public buildings, such as nursing homes or church halls.
Priority scoring scheme for disabled facilities grants
The demand for disabled facilities grants continually exceeds the available financial resources. In the past, enquiries have been dealt with in date order, other than those classed as 'fast track' cases, where there was considered to be an intolerable risk to health and safety or a life threatening illness.
In line with the government's good practice guide for disabled facilities grants and the policies of Golden Gates Housing and the registered social landlords, the council has now introduced a priority scoring scheme for all disabled facilities grants enquiries, allowing it to prioritise its resources for those in greatest need. The aim is to ensure a consistent approach to prioritising applications based on a risk assessment framework that also recognises available support and quality of life issues.
The occupational therapist will produce a priority score at the time of the assessment. Both the score and the recommendations will be checked by an independent living services manager to ensure consistency in approach between different officers. The score will be forwarded to Private Sector Housing, together with details of the recommended scheme, so that the grant process can be administered in priority order. Once the assessment is over 6 months old, points will be added on each month; this will ensure those branded as medium or low priority will not remain there indefinitely.
Cases identified by the independent living services manager as extremely urgent due to health and safety reasons or life threatening illness, will be fast tracked by Private Sector Housing, effectively jumping to the top of the queue, ahead of all other scored enquiries.
Disabled facilities grants sheltered accommodation policy
Where a client lives in sheltered accommodation and their own bathing facilities are assessed by an occupational therapist to be unsuitable for their needs, the following matters will be considered before a disabled facilities grant will be offered:-
- the availability / suitability of any communal facilities
- whether rehousing to a more suitable property could be offered by the landlord
- whether the landlord already has a programme in hand for upgrading the bathing facilities. The council has asked all registered social landlords undertaking refurbishment works to refit individual bathrooms with facilities suitable for an ageing population or to provide communal bathroom facilities suitable for an ageing population or to provide communal bathroom facilities of the same standard.
Where a client unreasonably refuses an offer of suitable alternative accommodation then the council's duty towards the client will have been considered to have been met and no disabled facilities grant will be offered.
Each case will be considered on its merit and where a DFG is refused by the council, the client may appeal in writing to the executive member and head of service for planning, regeneration and housing, whose joint decision will be final.
If you think that you, or someone you live with, need a dwelling adapting, the first step is to contact the Access Social Care team on 444239 to arrange an assessment by an occupational therapist.
Useful links:
Disabled facilities grant customer satisfaction survey 2009.pdf
Disabled facilities customer satisfaction survey 2010.pdf
Disabled facilities grant information booklet.pdf
Support for older people and adults with a disability
Disabled facilities grants consultation document.pdf