Your Doctor, Practice Nurse, Health Professional or Specialist will ask you a few questions to better understand the problem. They will then refer you to the right service to look at ways to help you at home.

The Occupational Therapist will look at the problems you are having at home because of your disability. They will ask questions, see how you do tasks and look at how you get around the rooms of your home.

They may suggest changes and get you some equipment to try. Sometimes small modifications to your home like a threshold ramp or rails might help. If needed, your therapist will talk to you about bigger modifications, such as a ramp or lift to help you get in and out of your home, or a different shower.

There are important things to know before deciding to modify your home which your therapist will tell you about. Some housing modifications can take a long time – your therapist may talk to you about moving to a more suitable home.

If you need help with funding modifications to your home, your Assessor (the Therapist who has accreditation to request funding) will send a request to us. We manage the Ministry of Health budget for equipment and modifications for disabled and older people.

For simple modifications, like rails, small ramps or a handheld shower, the Assessor will organise for a builder (known to us) to meet at your home to draw a plan and provide a cost for the modifications.

The quote and plan are agreed with you (and the property owner if that is not you) and the assessor sends them to us. We check that funding is available and then tell the builder to go ahead with the works.

If you need help with funding complex modifications to your home, your Assessor will send a request to us. We work with your Assessor to ensure that all the options have been considered and the agreed modifications, equipment and support to help you be safe in your home long-term are the best solutions for you. Complicated and costly modifications might mean that we need to do one or more of the following:

• Ask Work and Income to check if you need to pay towards costly modifications
• Ask Whaikaha - Ministry of Disabled People to review the funding request
• Work with you to jointly pay for the modifications and any additional works
• Organise Council consents

Sometimes requests for funding will not be supported - your Assessor and Accessable will tell you why. 

Once the Builder has completed the works, you and your Assessor will meet at your home to check that the modifications meet your needs.

Your Assessor will sort out any other equipment that is needed to use in your modified home. Sign-off papers are sent to us so that payment can be made to the Builder, Contractor or Supplier for the completed works.

Low-rise lifts and metal ramps are owned by Whaikaha - Ministry of Disabled People , and we will continue to repair, service and replace them when needed.

All other modifications are owned by the property owner – responsibility for looking after the modifications, maintaining and repairing them, servicing any equipment installed as part of the modification, and removing or replacing the modifications is the responsibility of you and the property owner.