Disabled Facilities Grant Advice - Using it yourself?

Creatively_Lilac

I’ve been going through the whole process of trying to get my bathroom converted into a low level shower for over a year & half , possibly longer and my OT also wanted me to get a stairlift and a permanent ramp fitted instead of the two portable ones I currently have; the case manager overseeing my case came out a few days ago with the current designs/plans and oh my goodness, they are absolutely insane. Somewhere along the way between the last couple of case visits there has evidently been some miscommunication between the team as they’re under the impression that I use a wheelchair around my house, for clarification purposes I’m an ambulatory part-time chair user and only use my chair when I leave the house and know I’m going to be on my feet for a long time, going to some place that likely won’t have anywhere for me to sit or is huge and requires a lot of walking - You get the general idea, most of the time I don’t need an aid around my house apart from a shower stool and I manage with a walking stick or crutches when my disability flares and I need a support.

But, they’re talking about taking out our front window and creating a kind of front porch to accommodate a stairlift, not only would this completely disrupt our lives as everyone works and so this would mean someone having to take time off for however long they plan for it to take but I also have a severe chronic lung condition and regularly need steroid treatment and nebuliser therapy so I cannot fathom what that amount of dust would do to my chest but because they’ve gotten this idea that I need wheelchair access at home, they want to turn our hallway sized bathroom into a large ass wet room, involving the removal of a wall between the bathroom and connecting bedroom which is equally as tiny (Just larger than your average box size room) . The only seeming non-issue is the ramp … currently 😅. I’ve already gone through the process of applying for the Disabled Facilities Grant for these adaptions and to my knowledge everything has gone through and been approved…. If we decided that we didn’t want to go ahead with everything the council are planning/ proposing then could we feasibly use this funding ourselves and do the adaptions ourselves?