Grant Funding For Stair Lifts
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Lots of people ask us “How much do they cost?” and whether there is help from the council with the price of it? We have helped many people over the last 15 years who have struggled on the stairs, and also financially who initially felt that a lift for their stairs would cost too much for them.
Little known sources of funding, separate from the local council, can be accessed through our office. And to make things affordable, if you are not eligible for a council grant, you could still secure yourself that much needed safety on the stairs, at a surprisingly low monthly cost, by choosing a 0% APR interest free lift. Contact us to find out more.
Prices
First of all the prices of lifts vary enormously, so you would need to let us know what the stairs are like before we can give you a better estimate of the costs. However a rough idea for a standard straight one is from £995 for a reconditioned model, up to around £2995 for a new straight model with added extras. A curved stairs design would require a made to measure model starting at around £2650 for a reconditioned one up to several thousand more for a multi-floor lift. The right one for you or your family member is the main focus, so contact us to get free advice from a professional today.
Disability Grants For Bathrooms
A DFG Grant (also known as a Disabled Facilities Grant) is the main source of funding that people think of, that they hope to get from their council, to enable them to carry on accessing their bathing facilities upstairs.
A bed can be moved downstairs, by two able bodies, quite easily, but washing and bathing facilities cannot be moved downstairs without some degree of building work, involving costs and unavoidable disruption. This is when previous customers thought about some kind of a lift being their answer, being installed as it does in about an hour, with no mess or upheaval.
Usually a call comes through to us such that a person is elderly or disabled and wishes to find out about council funding so that they can still access their bathroom. The choices are to have a lift installed, which would enable the user to still use their whole house.
Alternatively a downstairs bathroom can be installed instead, and sleeping arrangements too may also have to change. Walk-in baths or showers are commonly installed in a rear utility or former coal shed or a new extension is built to accommodate a wet room. These bathroom adaptations usually cost in excess of several thousand pounds and are only granted with council permission if they are deemed absolutely necessary. In other words if the council thinks that a stairlift would be a more inexpensive solution to bathing access, than a new bathroom being built downstairs, and would still meet the persons needs, then they will nowadays choose that option.
How to apply for a Disabled Facilities Grant
The Social Services department of your local council, which can be found by contacting your local main Local Authority Social Services Office, in conjunction with an Occupational Therapy needs assessment are usually the first steps to applying for financial help with stair lifts.
Eligibility for grants for disabled access
These grants are only suitable for someone who is genuinely disabled, and has lower income and savings of less than £6,000. Even if you have more than this, it might be worth your while putting in a claim on the off chance, and your social care assessor or health care support worker would be able to accompany you to an assessment at a Disabled Living Centre to find out more. It can also be arranged in the home. This is a means tested grant, so your partner, or whoever lives with you in the home will also need to have a financial assessment as well. Why not find out the costs from us?
Limitations on the grant
You must plan on living in the property for at least 5 years, otherwise you would have to repay the funds back to the council.
Your local council is likely to have a restricted budget for disability adaptations so even DFG grants for people on disability living allowance, still might not get approved and paid for, for up to 18 months or more after submission, due to local authority cutbacks. The only onus on councils is to make some kind of reply to your application within 6 months and it is a postcode lottery as to how quick your council is in replying to applications. This is what the BBC had to say about it in July. These grant delays and setbacks were responded to by the College of Occupational Therapists who made their opinion known here about the matter.
Appealing against a decision is possible through the same local council, that you made your application with, but in the 99% of cases that we are aware of, the same decision to not fund has been agreed with. Beyond this, some families contact the local government ombudsman, to argue their case for a disabled facilities grant, but <as can be seen here, so far the published cases still stand by the original social services assessments. Even if you have low funds you might be surprised at what can be done by contacting us. Contact us today on 0800 298 3040.