Housing Adaptations

Housing adaptations help you to stay mobile in and around your home.

Adaptations can range from small items, such as grab rails and lever taps, to major alterations.

If you think that you need any of this work, you will first have to be assessed and advised on how best to meet your needs in accordance with government guidelines. After this, we will arrange for the work to be carried out. You can request an assessment by contacting Children team on 01302 737777 or the Adult team on 01302 737391 then select option 3 for yourself or on behalf of someone else if you have their permission. The Assessment Officers will explain the assessment process to you and what happens next.

When a recommendation is received from social care one of the following takes place:

  • Minor adaptations - An order will be generated and passed to the contractor for the proposed works to be carried out.
  • Major works - We will visit your home within five days of receipt of the recommendations and carry out a survey. We will then produce a schedule of the proposed works.

If you are on the council's re-housing waiting list, only minor adaptations will be carried out. If you are in need of major works, you will first have to withdraw your housing application.

How long will this process take?

We work hard to get all work completed as quickly as possible. The length of time this takes depends on the type of work and how urgent your circumstances are.

For home adaptations:

  • Minor adaptations such as grab rails, lever taps, and mop stick rails will usually be installed in approximately 4 weeks
  • Major adaptations such as ramps, and showering facilities, will usually be installed in approximately 12 weeks

The current guidance suggests that urgent adaptations should be completed in 50 working days (10 weeks) and non-urgent within 130 working days (26 weeks).

  • Adaptations - Extensions, will usually be carried out as per the timescale below.

The following will provide you with an approximate timescale for each part of the extension process:

Recommendation for an extension received from the Occupational Therapist

Adaptations Officer visits, creates design brief and sends to the architect (10 working days)

Architect and Adaptations Officer revisit to carry out survey (20 working days)

Architect produces preliminary plans (30 working days)

Preliminary plans discussed and signed off by Occupational Therapist & Client (5 working days)

Architect produces full plans to send for planning & Building Control Approval (20 working days)

Planning & Building Control Approval received (70 working days)

Adaptations Officer produces schedule of works to send out to contractors for tender, client receives a copy (30 working days)

On receipt of tenders – contractor selected and start date requested (5 working days)

Contractor provides a start date (10 working days) Actual start date dependant on contractor workload

Adaptations Officer and Contractor visit the client to discuss the schedule of works and sign the contracts prior to the works commencing

Adaptations Officer carries out weekly monitoring visits during construction

Final inspection carried out on completion of works.

Adaptation is not the only answer in meeting the housing needs of people with medical or physical disabilities. Below are descriptions of other services that we provide.

Accessible Housing Register (AHR)

The accessible housing register holds the details of people who require special need housing because their current accommodation is unsuitable for their specific needs.

Our AHR coordinator liaises with Doncaster Home Choice and is notified of all properties that become available for allocation and have been purpose built, adapted or have special features that could benefit someone with a disability and will nominate prospective tenants to these properties on the basis of need.

Housing Assessment Panel (HAP)

The HAP comprises of a panel of Doncaster Council and staff from St Leger Homes of Doncaster.

Cases are discussed in reference to the urgency and priority for housing need.

In the case of a customer with a disability who may need expensive adaptations to allow them to remain in their current property, we may look at sourcing a more suitable property, saving the customer the upheaval of extensive works to their accommodation, as well as saving us the costs of unnecessary adaptations.

More information

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Last updated: 12 February 2025 08:44:14

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