Home Adaptations For Older Adults | How To Adapt Your Home For Care

You or your loved one may need home adaptations to continue living safely in your own home, or to make daily tasks like cooking and using the bathroom easier. This article explains everything you need to know about adapting your home for care, including the small or large adaptations you might need, how to get a home assessment and how to adapt your home for live-in care.

We’ve also included information on how to find a professional carer in your area and other support available from your local council.

In this article:

1. Home adaptations you may need
2. Disabled facilities grant
3. How to get a home assessment
4. Adapting your home for a live-in carer
5. How to find a professional carer
6. Home adaptation support from local councils

Home Adaptations You May Need

You might need home adaptations to continue living safely at home. You might also need them if you’re finding certain daily tasks more challenging, such as preparing and cooking meals, answering the door, using the bathroom and getting up and down the stairs.

Your local authority may decide you’re eligible for smaller home adaptations (less than £1,000) after a care needs assessment. You can apply for a care needs assessment by social services here.

The Home Improvements Agency can also help you find other schemes in your area to assist with paying for adaptations.

The minor home adaptations you may need include:

• A raised toilet seat
• Sturdy handrails on the staircase
• Concrete steps, or replacing steps with ramps for easier wheelchair access
• Motion sensor lights to ensure places such as your front door are well-lit
• Additional lighting throughout the home

You can also get other pieces of equipment, such as:

• Grab bars near the toilet, shower and bath
• A bath seat or electric bath lift
• Non-slip mats
• Bed rails
• Personal alarms
• A walking frame
• A riser-recliner chair

Disabled Facilities Grant

The disabled facilities grant is for larger home adaptations (more than £1,000). You can apply for a disabled facilities grant through your local council. This grant can be worth up to £30,000 in England, £36,000 in Wales and £25,000 in Northern Ireland. This support isn’t available in Scotland, so you should instead see what support is available through your local council.

The disabled facilities grant can help anyone with a disability, but a financial assessment is required first to check your eligibility (and whether you’ll need to contribute towards any of the adaptations). Your local council’s housing department carries out any work.

The major home adaptations you may need include:

• Widened doorways
• Lowering kitchen work surfaces
• Installing a stairlift
• Fitting a wet room or downstairs bathroom

How To Get a Home Assessment

You can apply for a home assessment through GOV.UK.

These assessments usually last an hour or longer. During them, an occupational therapist will visit your home, ask questions, and observe you to understand what adaptations are needed.

You should tell them everything you find tough on a day-to-day basis, even if it just seems like a minor inconvenience.

If this occupational therapist thinks you might benefit from additional support, including home care, they may refer you for a care needs assessment.

Adapting Your Home For a Live-In Carer

To live safely and happily in your home, a live-in carer will need the following:

• Their own room with a comfortable bed. The best option is often a spare room, but a different room such as an office could also be repurposed. This room should provide privacy by having a door (preferably one they can lock, as some home care providers require this). It should also be clean, warm and welcoming with plenty of storage space. Putting a TV in this room is also a good idea, as it allows the carer to relax and recharge, while also avoiding any potential disagreements over what to watch on TV
• Additional storage space in other parts of the home
• Easy access to bathroom facilities. If possible, give the carer their own private bathroom. This isn’t essential however, and not all homes have multiple bathrooms
• A fully-functioning kitchen, including cooking facilities like hobs and an oven. A kitchen is needed so the carer can prepare and cook meals for themselves and/or the person they’re caring for
• A strong Wi-Fi connection (this connection should reach their room)
• Emergency contact details

Is a short-term or long-term live-in carer needed?

Whether you need short-term or long-term carer affects the modifications you’ll make to your home. Short-term care means changes can be more temporary, while long-term care means more extensive home renovations may be needed.

For example, someone may temporarily convert a room for a live-in carer to live in if they’ll only be staying for a few weeks, while a more permanent arrangement, such as providing a proper bedroom, would be needed for long-term care.

Short-term care is common after spending time in the hospital and then continuing to recover at home. Someone with long-term care needs will require ongoing support to keep living safely in their own home.

Adding a carer to your home insurance policy

You should tell your home’s insurer you’re now employing a professional live-in carer. This change may affect your policy, and could cause issues further down the line if you don’t let them know.

Some insurance policies will automatically include this circumstance. If it does, you don’t need to tell them, but you should contact them if you’re unsure.

If the live-in carer plans on driving your car as a part of their care duties, such as transporting you to and from appointments, they’ll also need adding to your car insurance.

Keeping your home safe and secure

While home carers have been thoroughly vetted, including criminal record and reference checks, you should still store away any expensive items as a safety precaution, including large sums of money and any valuables you have.

This is also done to protect the carer from any potential blame. If your loved one is living with dementia, they may misplace something and then wrongly blame the carer for moving it or taking it.

How To Find a Professional Carer

We’re partnered with the UK’s best home care agencies. Through Lottie, you can find home care near you. To ease your search, you can also request a free list of home care agencies, and our care experts will send you home care providers with availability in your area.

When searching for home care through our free service, simply enter your postcode and click ‘Domiciliary’ or ‘Live-In’ to see options nearby.

Each of our home care listings includes the types of home care offered, the funding types accepted and whether care is available on an ongoing or fixed-term basis.

Home Adaptation Support From Local Councils

Local councils and authorities throughout the UK list the support with home adaptations available to people in their area. You can find these by searching for your local council. We’ve also listed some of these help and guidance pages below:

• Exeter City Council
• Surrey County Council
• City of Westminster (London)
• Norwich City Council
• Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council
• Derbyshire County Council
• Leeds City Council
• Manchester City Council
• Durham County Council
• Cardiff Council
• City of Edinburgh Council

Lottie matches care seekers with the best home carers for their care needs. You can request a free home care shortlist, where we’ll find you home care providers with availability in your local area.