Adapting your home for disabled people

Finding it difficult to get around at home?

Specialist Housing Services team is committed to providing the right kind of care and support to help you live as independently as possible.

We may be able to:

• Help you with major adaptations (large changes) to your home, such as fitting a lift and converting rooms
• Help you to move to a house that is easier for you to live in
• Regularly check and repair lifting equipment in your home

Who can we help?

As we cannot provide everything that we are asked for, we have to decide how to provide the best service we can, for all the people who live in Salford. The eligibility criteria for our services help to make sure that we provide services fairly.

• You must live in Salford permanently
• You must be substantially and permanently disabled, according to Section 29(1) of the National Assistance Act 1948. For adaptations to your home, you must be substantially and permanently disabled according to the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996
• Your disability must make it much more difficult for you to carry out normal, daily activities in your home, such as dressing, washing and going to the toilet. If you have a carer who helps you with these tasks, then the help they give must be more than one person should be expected to carry out

For more detailed information about eligibility criteria, you should ask community occupational therapy. If you do not meet the criteria, we may not be able to provide you with services.

Assessing your needs

If you think we may be able to help you, then you should contact Community Occupational Therapy. Their address and telephone number are at the end of this information. We will then arrange for someone to visit you to find out what daily activities you find difficult to carry out in your home and what your needs are. This is called an assessment. Whoever visits you, will also check to see if you meet the eligibility criteria. We will not be able to assess your needs immediately, so we will let you know how long you will have to wait.

After the assessment

Once your needs have been assessed and if you meet the eligibility criteria, we will give you a copy of our recommendations. These will list some of the ways we can meet your needs. After your assessment, we may:

• Recommend that you receive further treatment or rehabilitation
• Advise you on how to re-organise your home to make it easier for you to carry out your normal daily tasks
• Advise you to buy some equipment which will help you to carry out your normal daily tasks

If you meet the eligibility criteria, we may also:

• Be able to lend you specialist equipment
• Advise you on practical help that you may be able to get from other organisations
• Advise you to think about moving to a home which is easier for you to live in
• Recommend that you have your home adapted and tell you how this might be paid for and possibly refer you to another organisation for more help

Providing adaptations

If we recommend that your home is adapted, then we will survey it, to check what is possible. We may either recommend a major or a minor adaptation. Community occupational therapy will carry out minor adaptations and Housing Support will carry out major adaptations. We use specialist builders to carry out the work.

Maintenance service

If you have lifting equipment in your home, such as a lift or a ceiling track hoist, we may be able to provide a maintenance service. This is available to all Salford residents. For information about this service, contact the Specialist Housing Services team. The number is at the bottom of this page. If community occupational therapy lend you specialist equipment, they will maintain it. Please contact them if you have any problems.

Useful addresses and telephone numbers

Please call us for details of how to request an assessment on 0161 206 0604.

Specialist Housing Services
Burrows House
10 Priestley Road
Wardley Industrial Estate
Worsley
M28 2LY

Telephone: 0161 607 1415

You can find out more from the Disabled Living Centre.

More information

The Mandatory Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) is available to owner occupiers or those in the private rented sector, find out more about the grant.