DFG 8 month wait!

In August last year I asked the OT about a stairlift as I cannot get upstairs anymore, she said they won’t put in a stairlift only a through floor lift, future proofing.

I really don’t want my house ruined with a lift but at the time I had been referred for a wheelchair so didn’t have any argument against the future proofing, so I just bitterly resigned myself to never going upstairs again.

As it’s turned out, by the end of October last year I realised the wheelchair service had no intention of helping me, they just wouldn’t process GP and OT referrals for me, and at the beginning of January I realised I could ask again for a stairlift as future proofing no longer mattered, because if I can’t get to the stairlift I wouldn’t be able to get to a lift either.

So, an absolute negative could be a positive for once in my life…but no, I’ve just had a letter from the Council’s DFG dept and it states there’s an eight month wait for a home assessment!

Another eight months of not being able to go upstairs and then they cld just say no anyway and I don’t have the energy to battle over it.

I’m wondering if I should cash in my pension five years early so I can buy my own stairlift and wheelchair, there’s not a lot of money there but at least I might be able to have a tiny bit of some quality of life for a couple of years till the money run out!

Are you in a unitary authority or separate district & county? Sometimes the OT’s are run at county level but it’s the district which provides Disabled Facilities Grants for some things. If that’s the case, pester them both and play them off against one another.

Also worth asking that if you paid for the assessment or arranged one independently, would they honour the recommendations?