Login

DCW150-Home Adaptations and Mobility Equipment Policy

{{org_field_logo}}

{{org_field_name}}

Registration Number: {{org_field_registration_no}}

Home Adaptations and Mobility Equipment Policy

1. Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to ensure that {{org_field_name}} effectively manages home adaptations and mobility equipment for service users, enabling them to live safely and independently in their own homes. Home adaptations and mobility aids play a crucial role in enhancing safety, preventing falls, and promoting independence for individuals receiving domiciliary care.

This policy ensures that:

This policy aligns with:

2. Scope

This policy applies to:

This policy covers:

3. Policy Statement

{{org_field_name}} is committed to ensuring that service users receive safe, effective, and personalised support with mobility equipment and home adaptations. Our approach focuses on:

4. Managing Home Adaptations and Mobility Equipment Efficiently

4.1 Identifying and Assessing Needs

Before agreeing to provide care and support, {{org_field_name}} will determine whether it can safely meet the individual’s mobility, transfer and equipment needs. This determination will take account of the individual’s care and support plan, relevant health or specialist assessments, their views, wishes and feelings, identified risks, any reasonable adjustments required and the skills and resources available within the service.

An initial personal plan must be prepared before care and support begins. Where the individual is in urgent need of care and support and there has not been sufficient time to prepare the personal plan, it must be prepared within 24 hours of the service commencing.

Within seven days of the commencement of the service, a provider assessment must be completed by a person who has the skills, knowledge, competence and training required to undertake the assessment. The provider assessment must consider how the individual’s mobility and care needs can best be met, how the individual can be supported to achieve their personal outcomes, their views, wishes and feelings, and risks to the individual, staff or other persons.

This involves:

The findings of mobility, moving and handling, environmental and equipment assessments must be recorded in the individual’s provider assessment, risk assessments and personal plan, as applicable. The personal plan must provide staff with clear instructions about the support to be provided, the equipment to be used, the agreed method of transfer or mobility support, the number of staff required and the action to take if the planned method cannot be followed.

The personal plan must be reviewed whenever required and at least once every three months. It must be reviewed sooner where there is a change in the individual’s condition, mobility, weight-bearing ability, cognition, behaviour, home environment, equipment, personal outcomes or level of assistance required; following a fall, injury, near miss or equipment incident; or where the existing arrangements are no longer safe or effective.

The review must involve the individual, the placing authority where applicable, and any representative where appropriate and lawful. Following the review, the personal plan and associated risk assessments must be revised where necessary.

4.1.1 Consent, Capacity and Involvement

The individual must be involved in decisions about mobility assistance, equipment and home adaptations and must be provided with information in a language, format and manner they can understand. Consent must be obtained before staff provide mobility assistance or use equipment, unless there is another lawful basis for the intervention.

Staff must not assume that an individual lacks capacity because of their age, disability, diagnosis, communication difficulty or because they make a decision that others consider unwise. Where there is reason to doubt the individual’s capacity to make a specific decision about equipment, mobility support or a proposed adaptation, a decision-specific capacity assessment must be undertaken in accordance with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

Where the individual lacks capacity to make the relevant decision, any decision or action must be in the individual’s best interests, must be the least restrictive available option and must take account of any valid and applicable advance decision, lasting power of attorney, court-appointed deputy or other lawful authority. The assessment, consultation, decision and reasons must be recorded.

4.2 Types of Home Adaptations and Mobility Equipment

Home adaptations and mobility aids may include:

Minor Adaptations (Low-cost, quick installations)

Major Adaptations (Larger structural changes)

Mobility Equipment

4.3 Requesting and Implementing Adaptations

If adaptations are required, {{org_field_name}} will:

Staff must not use a newly installed adaptation or item of mobility or moving and handling equipment until the relevant assessment has been completed, the personal plan and risk assessment have been updated, and the staff required to use it have been provided with appropriate information, instruction and training and have been assessed as competent.

4.4 Safe Use, Inspection, Examination and Maintenance of Equipment

Equipment must be used only for the purpose for which it is intended, in accordance with the individual’s current personal plan, risk assessment, manufacturer’s instructions and any instructions provided by the supplying organisation.

Before using mobility or moving and handling equipment, staff must complete the pre-use checks specified by the manufacturer, supplier, competent person or organisational procedure. These checks must include, where relevant:

Staff must not substitute a different hoist, sling, attachment, transfer aid or transfer technique unless the alternative has been assessed and authorised by a competent person and the personal plan and risk assessment have been updated.

Equipment provided for use at work and owned, supplied or controlled by {{org_field_name}} must be suitable for the intended purpose, maintained in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair. It must be inspected by a competent person where deterioration, installation conditions or exceptional circumstances could create a risk.

Where lifting equipment is used by staff and {{org_field_name}} owns, supplies, operates or controls that equipment or its use, lifting operations must be properly planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised and carried out safely.

Lifting equipment and associated accessories used to lift people must be thoroughly examined by a competent person at least every six months, unless a written examination scheme prepared by a competent person specifies a different interval. A routine service or maintenance visit must not be treated as a substitute for a statutory thorough examination.

Records of applicable inspections, servicing, maintenance and thorough examinations must be retained and must be available to staff responsible for checking whether the equipment is safe and in date.

Where equipment is supplied by a local authority, NHS body, community equipment service, landlord, family member or another third party, the Registered Manager must establish and record who has responsibility for inspection, statutory thorough examination, servicing, maintenance, repair and replacement. {{org_field_name}} must take reasonable steps to confirm that equipment used by its staff is safe, suitable and within the required inspection or examination period.

If required maintenance, inspection or thorough examination documentation cannot be confirmed, staff must not use the equipment until the Registered Manager or delegated competent person has confirmed that it is safe and lawful to do so. Alternative safe care arrangements must be agreed and recorded.

4.5 Staff Training and Competency

Staff must not assist with the use of mobility, transfer or lifting equipment unless they have received training appropriate to their role and the equipment they are expected to use, and their practical competence has been assessed.

Training and competency assessment must include, where relevant:

Competence must be reassessed when staff are required to use unfamiliar or materially different equipment, where the individual’s transfer method changes, following an incident or unsafe practice, where supervision identifies a concern, or where training needs analysis shows that refresher training is required.

Training and competency records must identify the equipment or procedure covered, the date of training, the assessor, the outcome and any restrictions or further support required.

Staff must not improvise a transfer, manually lift an individual contrary to their assessed plan, use equipment for which they have not been trained and assessed as competent, or proceed where the required number of staff is unavailable.

4.6 Defective, Unsafe, Unavailable or Overdue Equipment

Where equipment is defective, damaged, contaminated, unsuitable, outside its required inspection or thorough examination period, missing a required component, or otherwise suspected to be unsafe, staff must:

Staff must not repair, alter, adapt or modify equipment unless they are authorised, trained and competent to do so.

Where an incident or near miss has occurred, the Registered Manager must determine whether it requires notification or referral under any applicable statutory, contractual, safeguarding, health and safety, medical-device or CIW reporting arrangements. Evidence, equipment records and relevant documentation must be preserved where an investigation may be required.

Where the absence or failure of equipment means that {{org_field_name}} can no longer safely meet the individual’s assessed needs, the service must immediately notify the individual, any representative, the service commissioner and the placing authority, as applicable, and work with them to establish safe alternative arrangements.

4.7 Working with External Agencies

Where specialist assessments, funding, or installation services are needed, {{org_field_name}} will collaborate with:

Effective communication with external agencies ensures that service users receive timely and appropriate adaptations.

4.8 Equipment Responsibility and Records

For every significant item of mobility or moving and handling equipment used by staff, the individual’s records must identify, as applicable:

{{org_field_name}} must maintain a system for identifying equipment used by staff that is approaching or has passed a required inspection, servicing or thorough examination date. Equipment must not be used by staff after the relevant due date unless a competent person has confirmed in writing that its continued use is safe and legally permissible.

5. Related Policies

This policy aligns with:

6. Policy Review

This policy will be reviewed annually or sooner if required due to:

Responsible Person: {{org_field_registered_manager_first_name}} {{org_field_registered_manager_last_name}}
Reviewed on: {{last_update_date}}
Next Review Date: {{next_review_date}}
Copyright © {{current_year}} – {{org_field_name}}. All rights reserved.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *