Adaptations to the home

I think we forget how lucky we are in the UK.

Sometimes, when I read about Occupational Therapists dishing out such things as tin openers, and people moaning that they don't like the NHS grey of their crutches, I think that yes, you don't know how lucky you are in the UK.

I don't care what colour my crutches are as I had to buy them, and I have three pairs. Ditto my zimmer frame. Although they are only used to help me stand from bed to chair, or in the kitchen to prepare food, or to get from chair to loo and back.

I still think that I'm lucky in that I've been able to utilise my disability allowances to pay for things that enable me to still live independently, so why do people moan about silly things such as the colour of crutches that they have been given and hadn't had to pay for?

Please don't misunderstand me - I am not complaining about my lot, because I am happy and comfortable in my skin.

I just don't understand all the bitching that goes on amongst people with disabilities because they have to wait for things that are going to be given them for free.

Sorry, bit confuddled with painkillers and fibrofog, so please don't take this post as a moan, as it isn't meant to be. I just don't think I'm wording things that well.

Sorry.:blush:

Ellie,

I appreciate that your post was a while ago but here are my experiences of the adaptations proceses here in Rural Northamptonshire.

I applied to have my home adapted through the local council they appointed an occupational therapist aproxamatly six months later who came to my home to do an assessment , back in 1998 when I moved uphere from Portsmouth there was no forward planning like there has to be now, so somebody sketched a ramp for my back door as there was apparently not enough room out the front.

they came to build a plywood ramp about three months later no one ever told me how much grant money was allocated to me which I found quite disturbing but they decided to build a ram eight feet out from the house combinning two four feet width ramps to deal with the incline and height of my back door step.
they fixed all of this weight to the back wall with only four three inch wood screws. I told them that it was crap and asked the builders if I could order them offsite as I wasnt happy with the shoddy work they were doing, the head man said I had the right to tell them to gwet off site so i told them to P*ss off.

I went to the council and had a nice chat with a senior building inspoector who came out to my home with a big protractor and did some measuring he drew up a small compact ramp made of concrete and paving slabs which didnt take up half of my garden.

the builders returned to do a fairly decent job but I didnt like the scafoldiing type hand rails up the side of the ramp which were promptly removed when a friends child ran out of the back door and cracked his head open on them.

anyway what does a person in a wheelchair do with handrails?

the company that did this work were called care and repair they were so thick and incompetant at their jobs when they tiled my bathroom for a shower they destroyed the plasterboard wall behind the bath taps and tried to glue the edges of the tiles together with tiling grout to substiturte the very fact that there was no longer wall to stick the tiles to.

I went down my shed pulled out a piece of plywood and made good the repair myself they critisised my work and said that they would now be overbudget because I used a handful of their grout to stick the tiles to the repaired wall I had repaired.

They also built double back gates for me becuase I had a 14 foot adapted sailing dingy the idea was that they would make the gateway 6ft wide so that the boat trailer would fit into my back garden low and behold they didnt take any notice of measurements and built the gateway 5ft 6ins wide, what a load of pratts care and repair are, their work is so shoddy I wouldnt let them near my home again.

they put in two handrails on my staircase and tried glueing them to the wall with gripfill not a screw in sight. and these people were supposed to be recommended by the local housing authority for fitting disable adaptations.
I called them back to fix the handrail properly and this was on a friday night to they were not happy at all.

fortunately before I became to ill to manage putting all of the work right myself I somehow coped with putting most of the problems right myself these idiots are based in coventry and work for housing associations all over the UK I sincerely hope they are not still working for people they havent got a clue about any basic building skills not one.
the so called service is a total sham.

I would have been better of applying for the grant and finding my own private builder to do the job or maybe I should have done it myself.

regards Nigel.<br><br>Post edited by: oojimmyflip, at: 2010/11/02 17:26

this was a reapeat of the above dont know how it was posted twice.<br><br>Post edited by: oojimmyflip, at: 2010/11/02 17:06