Adapting your home

Finding it difficult to get around at home?

The Accessible Accommodation Service is committed to providing the right kind of care and support to enable you to live independently in your home.

We may be able to:

• Help you with major adaptations (large changes) to your home, such as fitting a lift and converting rooms
• Undertake smaller adaptations which make accessing part of your home easier such as hand rails outside of your property.
• Regularly check and repair lifting equipment in your home

Who can we help?

We have to decide who qualifies for this service and there is a criteria that we must follow, detailed below:

• You must have a permanent address in Salford
• You must be substantially and permanently disabled, according to Section 29(1) of the National Assistance Act 1948 and 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 can contact the Community Occupational Therapy Service. If you do not meet the criteria, we may not be able to provide you with services but may be able to help you in other ways for example by loaning you equipment which is currently free of charge to residents of Salford.

Assessing your needs

Community Occupational Therapy Service will arrange for someone to visit you at home to discuss your daily activities, difficulties in your home and your needs. This is called an assessment (we look at your circumstances and situation). We will also check if you meet the eligibility criteria. You will be given advice and further information following your assessment.

After the assessment

Once your needs have been assessed and if you meet the eligibility criteria, you will be given 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 daily tasks
• 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, we will survey your property. We may either recommend a major or a low cost adaptation. Community Occupational will carry out low cost adaptations and Accessible Accommodation will do the major adaptations.

If you rent your property we will liaise with you and your landlord if required following your assessment as we need their permission to make physical changes to the property. We use specialist builders to carry out the work who have been selected following a strict assessment process.

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 Accessible Accommodation Service using the details below. If Community Occupational Team lend you specialist equipment, they will look after it and repair.

Contact information

Please call the Adult Social Care Contact team for further information and to request an assessment on 0161 206 0604.

Or you can email us at salford.socialservices@nca.nhs.uk

You may also be able to get help 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.

This page was last updated on 10 May 2024