Adapt your home

To make it easier to manage day to day life, you can adapt or make changes to your home. This can help you continue to live independently and safely at home. For example, if you are finding it harder to move around your home, get washed, use the toilet or prepare meals.

There are 2 type of adaptations that are available.

Minor adaptations are small changes that can be made to your home. They can be removed easily if no longer needed such as fitting:

lever taps
hand or grab rails around your home

Major adaptations are larger changes which can involve making structural changes to your home, such as:

fitting a ramp to your front door
widening doorways
lowering worktops
installing a shower or wet room

Help and advice

Care and Repair Newcastle is a home improvement agency. They help people to adapt their homes who are unable to do so themselves. They support disabled people, older people and vulnerable people to live independently and safely at home for longer. To use this service you will need to meet their eligibility criteria. This may also be means tested. Contact them for more information. They can help you to:

apply for a Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) to pay for adaptations to your home
access loan equipment such as a stair lift, ceiling track hoist or ramp
arrange for approved contractors to carry out adaptations to your home
get information and advice on moving home if it’s not possible to make changes to your home
apply for a Gas Safety Grant
apply for Minor Adaptations and Repairs Service (MARS) who can help you to make small changes to your home. Such as, fitting hand or grab rails