Office for Disability Issues finds housing adaptations improve outcomes while saving costs

Increased investment in housing adaptations and equipment for disabled and older people would bring savings of millions of pounds a year to councils while improving outcomes, government research out yesterday has found.

The study, Better Outcomes, Lower Costs, by the cross-departmental Office for Disability Issues, found that more adaptations would lead to huge savings in the cost of residential care and intensive home care.

Adaptations were also found to have positive effects aside from cost savings in the majority of cases, with 90 per cent of recipients saying they had improved their quality of life.

The report said that one year’s delay in an older person moving into residential care would save £26,000 per person, while the average cost of adaptations enabling them to stay in their own home was £6,000, producing massive savings.

Adaptations that removed the need for daily home care visits paid for themselves in a time-span ranging from a few months to three years and then produced annual savings the study found. In the cases it looked at such savings ranged from £1,200 to £29,000 a year.

Other findings included that the lack of timely provision of equipment and adaptations for disabled people led to them developing costly physical health problems such as pressure sores, ulcers and pains.

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 Mithran Samuel