Home adaptations - how long to wait?

Hello! I was wondering what your experiences are to get adapations put in? Both my parents have MS and they asked for help in August 2018. A downstairs wet room has still not been installed. They havent been kept up to date with (lack of) progress… Today they agreed that I could chase it up on their behalf! Today is the day I feel I now move from potential-carer to carer! I work in a Carers support service so I want to chase us as daughter, to find out what people are going through to get help, then use some of my work contacts so that families get the help they need much quicker. My parents are both so resilient and very rarely ask for help, so when they do - they need it quickly! Are we unlucky or are these huge delays normal?

i think it depends on where you are…i’m in Cardiff,Wales and i put in three weeks ago for grip rails and bath to shower adaption…they were brilliant and really nice occupational therapist got in touch two weeks after to do my accessment…getting rails and other small adaptions apparently can go ahead a.s.a.p. but bigger jobs like shower adjustments are based on personal finances…as it turned out if you are on any kind of benefit ie universal credit etc…and can prove it then it an automatic good to go which surprised me but the financial lady who did my check was also very supportive and helpful with all my queries…they are employed by council…they put the major adjustment of bathh to shower on the to-do but say it will be not be long…fingers and toes x…if you ask you local authority for refferal home ajustments they should help you…my best to you and yours…

Hi thanks for taking the time to reply :slight_smile: That sounds so much quicker than our experience, weeks if not months just to even get the assessmemt. Ive found out someone in the council to find out what should happen. Ive heard some families have had similar job completed locally in 3 months… we’re only at design stage after 18 months… the advice says ‘long time’ but are we talking weeks, months or years?! Ive also found the MND campaign #ActToAdapt to get quicker adaptations.

You seem like a go-getter and highly motivated. Use that, keep at them like a terrier with a rat. It really is postcode lottery and councils are being squeezed as you know, Harder when parents won’t admit to the extent of their difficulties. Stress to social services the need for wetroom is URGENT .

Hi MD, did things get any nearer completion yet?

We converted our garage into a downstairs bedroom and wet room. Local authority wouldn’t fund as I work so we had to get charity help. Architects benevolent fund helped us for the majority of the cost and MS Society too. We arranged all the work ourselves though no help or support there. Hope that might help?