Free tool

Home Safety Score

35 questions across seven areas of the home, covering the hazards that appear in essentially every published fall-prevention checklist. You get a score, a room-by-room breakdown, and a prioritised list of what to change first.

Save it as your baseline, make some changes, and come back — the tool will show you exactly how far the house has moved. Everything stays on your own device.

0 of 35 answered

Entrance & hallways

Hallways are clear — nothing to step over or around counts double

Lit well enough to see the floor, with a switch at both ends counts double

No loose rugs or mats that slide underfoot counts double

No cables or cords crossing the floor

Somewhere firm to sit while putting shoes on

Stairs & steps

A secure handrail running the full length, top to bottom counts double

Light switches at both the top and the bottom counts double

Steps are clear — nothing stored on them counts double

Carpet or treads are firmly fixed, with no worn edges

The edge of each step is easy to see

Living areas

A clear route through the room, wide enough to walk normally counts double

No loose rugs, or all rugs secured counts double

Cords run along walls, not across the floor

Everyday things are reachable without stretching or a stool

Chairs have arms and are high enough to stand up from easily

Kitchen

Everyday items are between waist and shoulder height counts double

If a step stool is needed, it is stable and has a handhold

Non-slip mat at the sink, and spills dealt with straight away

Work surfaces are well lit

Nothing heavy stored above shoulder height

Bathroom

A grab bar beside the toilet counts double

A grab bar in the shower or bath counts double

Non-slip mat or adhesive strips in the tub or shower counts double

Standing up from the toilet is comfortable

A light that comes on for night-time trips counts double

Bedroom

A lamp or switch that can be reached from the bed counts double

A clear, lit path from the bed to the bathroom counts double

Sitting on the edge of the bed, both feet rest flat on the floor

A phone within reach of the bed

Supportive slippers or shoes worn indoors, not socks

Outside

Outside steps have a handrail counts double

Paths are even — no cracks, lifted slabs or moss

The front door and path are lit after dark

A plan for ice, wet leaves or snow

The house number is visible from the road

About the person living here

This part matters more than everything above it. These are the questions a doctor asks when screening for fall risk, and they predict falls far better than any feature of a building does.

What this score is, and what it isn't

It is the share of well-established home fall hazards you have dealt with, weighted slightly towards the handful that every published checklist agrees on. That is a genuinely useful thing to know, because most people have never looked at their home this way and are surprised by what turns up — usually in the bathroom, and usually the lighting.

It is not a prediction. No web page can tell you the chance that you or your parent will fall, and any that offers to is making it up. The factors that actually drive that number are mostly about the person: whether they have fallen before, how steady they are on their feet, what medicines they take, whether standing up makes them dizzy, how well they see. A home can be immaculate and the risk still high.

That is why this tool asks about those things, and why it will point you towards a doctor even when the house scores well. The order of importance runs: the person first, then the home.

Where the hazards usually are

The bathroom

Wet, hard, and full of surfaces people grab that were never designed to hold weight. A towel rail is not a grab bar; it is a rail attached to plasterboard that will come away in your hand at the moment you need it most. Properly fitted bars beside the toilet and in the shower are the single most common recommendation in this whole field, and they are the thing most homes are missing.

The route from bed to bathroom at night

Half asleep, in the dark, possibly having stood up too quickly. It is a well-recognised set of circumstances for a fall, and it is also one of the cheapest to fix: a lamp reachable from the bed so the light goes on before the feet go down, and a low night light along the route.

Loose rugs

The most-recommended removal in home safety and the most resisted, because rugs are usually there for a reason someone cares about. If a rug is staying, it needs non-slip backing and tape at the edges. The corners that curl are the ones that catch a toe.

Stairs without a full-length rail

A handrail that stops two steps short is worse than obvious, because the hand reaches for something that isn't there. Rails should run the whole flight and be fixed into the structure behind the wall, not just the plaster.

Doing the work

  • Start with the double-weighted items. They're weighted that way because everyone agrees on them.
  • Lighting first if money is tight. Plug-in motion lights cost very little and address several items at once.
  • Get the grab bars fitted properly. A bar screwed into plasterboard is a hazard pretending to be a fix. Into the studs, or with proper fixings.
  • Book the medication review. It's on the personal list, not the home list, and it's one of the few measures with strong evidence behind it.
  • Re-score in six months. Homes drift back. Things reappear on the stairs.

Related reading

Common questions

Does a high score mean my home is safe?

No, and we won't say that at any score. What the number tells you is the share of commonly recommended hazards you've dealt with. It cannot see the things it wasn't asked about, and more importantly it cannot see you. Someone who has already had a fall this year is at meaningfully raised risk of another one in a home that scores a hundred percent, because the strongest predictors of falling are personal, not architectural.

Why do some items count double?

The double-weighted items are the ones that appear in essentially every published home fall-prevention checklist — stair handrails, bathroom grab bars, lighting on stairs and landings, loose rugs, and a lit path from bed to bathroom at night. The weighting reflects how consistently those are recommended. It is not a measurement of how much any one of them changes your personal risk, and nobody can give you that number from a web page.

I live in a bungalow. Does the stairs section count against me?

No. Mark those items 'not applicable' and they're removed from the calculation entirely rather than counted as unaddressed. The same goes for any item that genuinely doesn't apply to your home.

Where does my answer data go?

Nowhere. The scoring runs in your browser and your answers are saved only in your own device's local storage, so you can come back and re-score later. We never receive them. If you enter an email for the printable plan, we receive your first name and email address and nothing else.

What is the baseline for?

Fixing hazards is invisible work — you can't see the fall that didn't happen. Saving a baseline means that when you come back after making changes, the tool shows you the difference: what the score was, what it is now, and which rooms moved. That number is the proof the effort was worth it, and it's the thing families most often want to see.

Is this a substitute for a professional home assessment?

It isn't. An occupational therapist visiting the home will see things no checklist covers, watch how someone actually moves through the space, and can arrange equipment and adaptations. In many places that assessment is available through a GP referral and costs nothing. This tool is a useful thing to have done before that visit, not instead of it.

Knowing what to fix is one thing. Getting it done is another.

The 30-Day Home Safety Blueprint turns this list into a day-by-day plan — what to do each day, what to buy, and the conversations to have with a parent who doesn't want a grab bar in their bathroom.

See the Blueprint

Educational guidance, not medical advice. If there has been a fall, or if walking feels unsteady, speak to a doctor.