We want all residents to receive the best possible service and feel safe and supported in their homes.
To help us do this, we may ask whether you or anyone in your household has any needs, circumstances, or communication needs or preferences that we should be aware of. This information helps us tailor our services and make sure you are not disadvantaged when accessing them.
Moving away from terminology like ‘vulnerabilities’ which some residents told us they find stigmatising and may not accurately reflect their situation, we may refer to these needs and preferences as ‘service adjustments’ (the health needs or circumstances as well as practical actions to support).
With your permission, we can record relevant information about you or members of your household. This may include physical, long-term or mental health conditions, temporary illnesses or injuries, pregnancy, language needs, or other circumstances that affect how you access our services.
We can also capture practical actions we can make to how we deliver our services based on your individual needs or circumstances.
Examples may include:
- Allowing extra time to answer the door
- Knocking loudly before entering
- Wearing face or shoe coverings when visiting your home
- Being patient when communicating
- Providing information in a different language or format
- Speaking to a nominated representative who supports you with housing matters
Some adjustments can be put in place straight away. Others may require additional information or assessment to make sure they are practical, appropriate, and reasonable. In some cases, these are known as reasonable adjustments.
We can also record your communication preferences, i.e how you would prefer us to contact you. However, there may be times when we are required to communicate with you in a specific way, such as sending certain documents by letter.
Sharing this information with relevant NHG staff and contractors helps us provide services that better meet your needs. It can also help us make informed decisions when prioritising services, such as repairs or safety-related issues.
You can tell us about your needs or preferences at any time by speaking to your local officer or a customer service adviser. You will also be able to view and update this information through your My Account portal.
If you have any questions about service adjustments, have a look at the FAQ below or speak to your local officer.
FAQs
Off the back of resident feedback, we use the term ‘service adjustment’ to describe the practical action we can take to make sure you are not disadvantaged when accessing our services because of a health need or circumstance. It is a more considerate term than ‘vulnerability’.
If you have provided us with any information about a particular need, protected characteristic or personal circumstance, one or more of six icons will appear on your profile. If something looks wrong, or you can’t see any icon representing information you have disclosed to us, contact your housing officer as soon as you can.
Residents have the option to disclose to us the specific nature of their need or circumstance (physical, non-visible, mental health condition, chronic health condition, neurodivergence or ‘life circumstances’) as well as practical instruction for staff or contractors to know. For example, that it may take you longer to answer the door or that English is not your first language, and a translator/translated text may be required. You should only disclose information you are comfortable to share about your service adjustment need. You can also tell us about any specific communication needs you have (e.g a language barrier, format needs) as well as any preferences which we can accommodate for (where possible) for example text message preferred over email.
Throughout the consultation we held with residents, you highlighted several scenarios or conditions that aren’t necessarily a health condition or disability but would be beneficial for us to know about to ensure you have the best possible experience of a service. This ‘life circumstance’ icon will enable residents to disclose situations or conditions an individual might find themselves in, temporarily or permanently which may affect them day to day. Examples could include broken limbs or minor injury, pregnancy, grief, lack of access to digital technology, unable to communicate in English or financial concerns.
A housing association can collect information about a tenant’s health or disability to fulfil its legal duty to provide reasonable adjustments or support under the Equality Act 2010 or other housing-related legislation. This falls under the "social protection" condition of Article 9(2)(b) under GDPR, which allows processing of special category data when it's necessary for employment, social security, or social protection law.
The more information we can gather, the better we can begin to tailor services to you. We can notify contractors about helpful actions like ‘please knock loudly on arrival/ allow me extra time to answer to door’ or ‘please text me on arrival where possible’. We also need to ensure we are compliant with certain legislation which will require us to prioritise residents for repairs based on particular health conditions.
Rest assured we are continuing to progress how we can use this information when delivering our service.
With improved information about residents and their households, we will be in a position to make more informed decisions about how to tailor and where applicable, prioritise services. With relevant service adjustment information, we can assess the need for a priority service in line with policy and legislation.
If we cannot easily apply your request to one our immediate practical actions, we may need some more time to assess it and respond more formally. Your local officer can support you with more specific requests like this.
We are creating improved functionality and guidance for our staff to ensure the right information is stored in one place and regularly checked and updated if necessary. The new process will aim to ensure that residents do not need to keep repeating this kind of information to us, which we understand can be frustrating and disappointing.
No. This information is for you to disclose to us voluntarily and you do not have to tell us. The more information we do hold, the better opportunities we have of supporting you and your household accordingly. You must first give us your explicit consent to capture health needs and circumstances. You will also have the opportunity to disclose ‘prefer not to say’ if you wish. There is other information that we are legally obliged to hold in relation to your tenancy or lease. Your housing officer or property manager can support you with any questions you have on this.
Any information captured will be done so with your explicit consent when in conversation or correspondence with your housing officer or property manager or a customer service centre adviser. There are other resident facing teams who may support you with a query or service who may also ask you about any service adjustment information we may need to log. This includes our repairs and complaints teams.
Where possible, we still ought to capture that detail. Housing officers or property managers having an awareness of this kind of information prior to making a visit or speaking on the phone or by email can be helpful for both staff and residents. In line with the regulator of social housing’s consumer standards, we are expected to consider the diverse needs of our residents in relation to the housing and landlord services we provide. In line with housing legislation, there may also be certain health conditions or circumstances that would require us to address that issue more quickly.
Contact your housing officer or property manager to inform them and this will be updated. You may also be occasionally reminded by us to keep your information up to date.
Yes. Any lead tenants will be able to tell us this information for any household member living with you.
Yes. You have the right to withdraw consent at any time in line with general data protection regulation (GDPR). Please contact us if you want us to disregard what you have previously told us.
Any service adjustment information you share with us won’t affect your tenancy or have a detrimental effect on the service you receive from us in any way. Sharing this information will give us a better understanding of you and your households needs and improve chances of providing you with a more tailored service.
For now, our staff are the only ones who can update this information. In time, we would like to explore the opportunity for residents to update information themselves. Not just service adjustments, but other things like contact information. Depending on what is updated, this may prompt follow up contact with your housing officer or property manager.
Yes, this information will still be captured whether you are using My Account or not. Please contact your housing officer, property manager or our customer contact centre to disclose this information.