Social Housing

Medical self-assessments

If you are applying for housing because your current accommodation affects a medical condition or disability, you must complete a medical self-assessment form alongside your application.

The assessment does not examine how severe your medical condition or disability is, it looks at how your current accommodation affects your health or disability or a member of your household. We want to understand if your health or a member of your household's health would improve by moving to alternative accommodation. 

What happens once the medical assessment has been carried out?

Once the assessment is complete, we will write to you with the outcome. There are three possible outcomes: 

  • you may have no identified housing need 
  • your priority band may remain the same if you had other reasons for housing 
  • you may be given an upgrade in your priority banding.

What can I do if I disagree with the medical assessment decision?

Because of the shortage of available properties, we have to assess your degree of medical problems and housing need against others in a less, similar or worse situation. It does not mean we have not accepted your medical condition(s) if your priority is not upgraded. No matter how serious the medical problems are, we cannot award an upgrade unless we can demonstrate how the current housing is making this worse. 

If you disagree with the medical assessment decision or any other aspect of your housing assessment, you can appeal against this.

Please note: when submitting an appeal, please state why you don't agree with our decision.

Priority

No matter how serious the medical problems are, we cannot award an upgrade unless we can demonstrate how the current housing is making this worse.

Because of the shortage of available properties, we have to assess your degree of medical problems and housing need against others in a less, similar or worse situation.

It does not mean we have not accepted your medical conditions if your priority is not upgraded.

Extra bedrooms

The council only awards extra bedrooms in exceptional circumstances and an extra bedroom for a full-time carer will only be recommended where an applicant needs ongoing essential overnight care.

Adviser

The medical adviser does not make a decision on your housing register application, but gives us an independent professional opinion about the severity of the medical condition, and whether the impact this has on the housing situation.

Note: If an applicant's current property is found to be suitable or could be improved to an acceptable standard, we cannot award medical priority. You should be aware that most applicants do not receive additional priority.

Page last updated: 03 Jul 2024