Occupational Therapy News OTnews February 2020 | Page 16

FEATURE HOUSING
Building for
the future
A specialist housing
occupational therapy team
has contributed to dramatic
cuts in waiting lists for
wheelchair users, hears
Andrew Mickel
The Tower Hamlets team: (left to right) Abdul Hoque, Joynal Aldine,
Tom Woulfe, Kaltun Hirsi, Clare Winter and Nerys Williams-Murray.
H
ousing for wheelchair users is in short
supply right across the country, and you
could reasonably assume that the problem
would be worse in the capital’s congested
housing market.
But a special council-wide initiative in east London’s
Tower Hamlets has harnessed the skills of a specialist
housing occupational therapy team to make sure that
the right properties are available for wheelchair users.
Work by the team has led to some dramatic
results in recent years. When the borough launched
its Project 120 initiative in 2012, there were 120
wheelchair users waiting for social housing. Since
then, 200 wheelchair users have been rehoused.
And the team – consisting of five occupational
therapists and one assistant – have been crucial to
this project, including the 93 newbuild schemes they
are currently working on.
They have worked closely with developers,
architects, the council’s own affordable housing team,
and housing associations, to ensure that the right
properties are built to the right specifications and are
put to use as fast as possible.
Not only does it offer a better service to residents, but
it also saves on costly adaptations, as well as ensuring
that fit-for-use properties are being deployed as fast as
possible and preventing units being left empty.
‘We have more influence as people come to us as
occupational therapists to check the spec,’ says Tom
Woulfe, a specialist community occupational therapist
in the housing team. ‘There’s more of a demand on us
and a bigger role for us.’
16 OTnews February 2020
Building the team
Before Project 120 was developed by the council, a
pilot programme was started around a decade ago
to locate two occupational therapists in the lettings
department to see if it could improve the flow of
information.
Over time, mergers and increased funding has built
the team up to its current standing.
Nerys William-Murray, senior housing occupational
therapist, says that having staff in different teams
meant there was little continuity and no single point of
expertise, something that was overhauled by creating
a single team.
She says: ‘One of the positives of having
occupational therapists in the housing team is we are
experts in our role and understand the policy really
well. We developed good links with the other housing
officers and stakeholders. That’s why the model works
so well; this has become our speciality.’
This meant the team was raring to go once Project
120 was started, and they quickly contributed to a raft
of changes that were introduced by the council.
One new rule goes above and beyond a London
requirement to ensure that 10 per cent of newbuild
units are wheelchair accessible. Rather than accepting
homes built to Lifetime Homes standard M4(3) (2)a – just
wheelchair adaptable – they now need to be built to
M4(3) (2)b to ensure they fully accessible from the
get go. ‘We don’t want future adaptable, we want
accessible,’ says Nerys.
The occupational therapist team also did some
research to justify a new rule for apartment blocks