Hidden among realms of Budget documents, the government has increased the funding for the Disabled Facilities Grant. Holly Holder, Deputy Director for Homes at the Centre for Ageing Better, explains why funding home adaptations and improvements is also funding for a healthier country.
Among the dozens of policy announcements and 170 pages of documentation from last month’s Autumn Statement, there was good news for accessible housing.
Buried deep within the Budget papers, the government announced a £86 million increase to the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) that will support 7,800 more adaptations to homes for those with accessibility needs.
Central government funding for DFGs in England was previously set at £573 million in 2023/24 and to remain at this level in this financial year.
But the previous government announced an additional £102 million as a capital top up over two years to increase funding and support for people to adapt or maintain their homes.
This latest increase may not be a seismic or game-changing amount of money considering demand is great. There are more than 600,000 non-decent homes that have a serious category one falls risk.
Welcome news
But it is welcome news at a time when we know the public finances are severely stretched.
DFGs were introduced in 1989 to provide home adaptations to support older and disabled people on low incomes to live independently and safely in their homes.
When they were introduced, they were just one part of the support available to improve the poorest housing stock.
Now, they are the only grants remaining that local authorities are statutorily obliged to provide and come with fairly stringent eligibility criteria.
The number of DFGs awarded had been steadily growing, reaching more than 58,000 in 2019/20, but this was then followed by a significant reduction in the number of grants in the following years despite increased funding.
This is in part because of the funding contributed by local authorities has reduced and in part because the value of individual grants given to people have increased.
Our newly-published report Keeping homes safe: a survey of home improvement services across England shows that DFG funding broadly increases with local need but there are outliers.
Half of the organisations we surveyed receive less than £2m annually in DFG funding and the number of people locally who might need support to adapt their home varies significantly between local authority area.
While the increase in DFG funding is welcome, more is necessary if the growing need is to be met.
Rising demand
There is rising demand for home adaptations as people live for longer and increasing numbers of people live with multiple long-term health conditions or experience reductions in mobility.
The importance and effectiveness of adaptations cannot be understated. Living in a suitable home is crucially important to a good later life.
Good housing and age-friendly environments help people to stay warm, safe and healthy, close to those who make up their social circle, and enable them to do the things that are important to them.
The majority of older people in England live in mainstream housing, but that housing often has small room sizes, steep internal stairs, baths rather than showers, and steps at the front door.
As people get older these become increasingly difficult to manage, with increasing long-term conditions and disabilities impacting on day-to-day activities within the home.
Maintain independence
Adapting the home can increase the usability of the home environment and enable the majority of people to maintain their independence for as long as possible.
This is important for reducing the risk of falls and other accidents, which ultimately can relieve pressures on accident and emergency services, speed hospital discharge, and reduce the need for residential care.
Even with public finances being as tight as they are, this government would reap the financial benefits if they went further in supporting more adaptations and home improvement and help meet their mission of building an NHS fit for the future.
Key to helping sustain the current model for the NHS is managing demand. Improving the homes that pose a real and direct threat to people’s health is key to reducing demand.
Removing the category one hazard of falls on stairs and falls on the level would save the NHS more than £320 million a year and £2 billion a year in wider costs to society.
We know that prevention is better than cure. And it is more cost effective too. Every £1 spent on home improvements to reduce falls lead to £7.50 worth of savings for the health and care sector.
But beyond the cost savings, it would mean hundreds of thousands fewer trips to A&E every year.
Reduced pressures
That means reduced pressures on overworked staff in the NHS and it also means hundreds of thousands of fewer older people in pain, anxiously awaiting treatment, and the subsequent impact it has on loss of confidence and sense of independence.
Of course, adaptations are only one solution to ensuring the delivery of the sufficient number of homes that we can age well within.
We should also be building considerably more accessible homes. Very little attractive, affordable housing has been built in the right locations to enable people to move to properties that are more accessible should the need arise.
This government has ambitious house building targets. But it won’t mean much to hit those targets if we’re not building the right kind of homes which are suited to people of all ages.
The previous government initiated steps to raise the minimum standards of accessibility for new build homes. This government should finish the job.
Also known as age-friendly or lifetime housing, ensuring the higher Category 2 becomes the standard would mean no steps between the pavement and the main entrance, more space to move around in all areas of the home, and deliver homes with features that are easily adaptable to improve accessibility in the future as needed.
A growing challenge
Finding the right home in the right location at the right price is a growing challenge for everyone, and it’s why the government has made housing and planning reform a key first year priority.
But finding the right home is especially difficult for millions of people who find it hard to move around their homes or use a wheelchair some of the time, when so few homes are designed and built with them in mind.
Raising the minimum accessibility standards would over time increase the supply of homes that are suitable to all, meeting accessibility needs of the majority and with the capacity for further adaptation, including walls strong enough to install grab rails, hidden floor gulleys to allow the easy installation of walk-in showers, and staircases wide enough to allow a stairlift.
Ultimately a good accessible home is good for our health and the health of the nation.
Visit the Centrefor Ageing Better for more details.