Good afternoon everyone,
I have trouble using a stool in my cubicle shower because there isn’t much room to move and I was wondering if anyone has applied for the disability grant for home adaptations and how long did it take to come through please?
Hello Dawn59
I can only speak generally about the Disabled Facilities Grant because I may not be totally up to date, but I have no reason to think it has changed greatly. You may find this link useful
In a nutshell the process does tend to be not the fastest of applications you may have cause to make. You will normally have to go to your local council for an assessment by an Occupational Therapist. Depending on how urgent your requirements are there can be a bit of a delay before the assessments take place as there are not enough OTs to meet the demand. The assessments will take into account your particular circumstances and their job is to make recommendation for adapting your property and will help you negotiate the DFG process and any other professionals who may be involved. The recommendations are made in line with the relevant legislation so they need to be seen as reasonable, practical etc. The DFG is most usually administered by Environmental Health at your local council. Most applications go through without a problem - the OT’s recommendations are accepted and the grant approved. Sometimes, usually where the adaptation is complex they may ask for clarification for the recommendations or suggest cheaper alternatives which may delay a decision.
I don’t know if this is still the casebut it probably is and that is Councils have a set amount to spend on DFGs and towards the end of the financial year when money is beginning to run out, some agreed works may be held back until the start of the new financial year when the DFG budget is replenished.
I am aware that this doesn’t sound very positive but you shouldn’t let it put you off. Many applications go through smoothly and with no undue delay. What I have written is really just to highlight where and why you may get some delays occurring and different areas will have different timescales. You also need to remember that if very complex work is needed these will naturally take longer than more straightforward simple changes.
To help with your particular issue it might be worth thinking about a wall mounted shower seat, these tend to take up less room and fold down to give a bit more space to get in and out of the shower, It may be this would solve your problem at a reasonable cost and reasonably easily sorted assuming you can otherwise use your shower safely - just something to think about perhaps.
I hope this is useful information and suggest you get some information local to you to have a more accurate picture of what the situation may be for you…
Best wishes
Tot
Hi Tot,
Thank you so much for sending me the link and it’s very helpful, we had a chap round earlier who quoted us for conversion into a wet room which would be much easier for me but of course quite expensive! Got someone else coming on Thursday so will be interesting to see what they quote.
Kind regards
Dawn
You are welcome. I have a wet room and love it. I had mine done several years ago and saved up to pay for it myself - delays for both the assessment and grant process were long locally at that time, and I knew what I wanted. Please make sure you use someone who knows what they are doing or you can have all sorts of problems.
They are not especially good but thought you might like to see some photos of my bathroom. I am fortunate to have quite a big space as the wc was separate from the bath so when that wall came down I acquired a decent sized room.
Let us know how you get on in due course won’t you.
Tot
