Issue - meetings

(a)       That the reduction in waiting times for Occupational Therapy assessment and improved timescales for the delivery of home adaptations be noted;

(b)       That the action plan and the workstreams contained within be supported;

(c)        That the proposed policy regarding the adaptation of family homes and upper floor flats within the Council’s housing stock be supported;

(d)       That updates on adaptations be provided to a future meeting of the Committee; and

(e)       That a breakdown on the cost of installing and removing the level access showers be provided to Members.                                

The Director of Community Services introduced a report to provide Members with an update on the delivery of home adaptations, including Disabled Facilities Grants (DFGs) and minor adaptations and to seek support for the Home Adaptations Action Plan and for a new policy to guide decision making for the provision of major adaptations in family houses and upper floor flats. 

            He detailed the background to the report and explained that the delivery of disabled adaptations was a challenge for the Council given the scale and complexity of demand.  Flintshire’s performance at September 2013 for DFGs against the national performance indicator was 207 days.  This met the local improvement target and was a significant improvement on the 2012/13 performance for 391 days for all DFGs.  However, guidance for the calculation of this performance indicator (PI) had been revised to allow for more accurate national benchmarking.  The PI for 12/13 had also been recalculated using the new guidance which provided a figure of 283 days for 2012/13 against the current performance for 2013/14 of 207 days.  The Director of Community Services welcomed the improvement of 76 days that could be seen from the last financial year.  The waiting time for occupational therapy assessments had also significantly decreased and the figures for Flintshire were lower than the national average wait for an assessment.  The Modernisation of Social Services Board, which the Director and Cabinet Member for Social Services were members of, had driven the development of reablement and preventative services and highlighted the need to develop locality teams to ensure that Social Services worked more closely with health colleagues. 

            The Chair congratulated the Members of both Committees for their work in the workshops in pursuing the issue of DFGs and home adaptations and gave thanks to the officers for their work.

            The Housing Renewal Manager said that work had been undertaken to look at the Council’s housing stock and identify the best solution to adaptations to properties.  A new policy had been developed on the issue of adaptations of family houses and upper floor flats for people living with a disability.  Since 1 April 2013, 111 requests for level access showers had been actioned by the in-house adaptations team.  These remained the most common adaptation that took place but with the cost at approximately £6k to install the shower within a property, the total spend was £666k so far in 2013/14.  Approximately 25% of these level access showers were in family houses and a further £150k was expended annually on stairlifts, with a straight stairlift costing £3.5k and up to £6k for a complex curved stairlift.  Over £1m was spent on major adaptations to the Council’s own housing stock and the proposals in the policy considered doing the right type of adaptation for the right property for current and successive tenants.  Paragraph 3.05 listed the points to consider when assessing the needs of the tenant and whether relocating them to a different property was a better option.  The Housing Renewal Manager also  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10