Disability Discrimination

On October 1st 2004 the final stage of the goods, facilities and services provisions of part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act came into force.  The new obligations apply to anyone providing a paid or unpaid service to the public.

A 'Service Provider'  must ensure that access is available to all disabled people and that entry routes, facilities and all information is clearly defined and indicated by suitable signage.

Any organisation with 15 or more staff will also not be able to discriminate against disabled people in terms of recruitment and employment conditions.  The new provisions are a further important step forward to ensuring that disabled people have access to services that others take for granted.

Service providers are expected to anticipate and make the reasonable adjustments to their premises and to plan ahead. Companies will need to look at and make appropriate signage and marking of:

• car parking bays
• setting down points
• routes to and around your building
• entrances and exits
• directions to facilities, i.e. lifts, stairs, toilets etc.
• information and additional help for disabled
• emergency exit routes
• enhancement of existing signage

DISABLED ACCESS AND DISABILITY

You will by now understand the requirements of disabled access and disability discrimination, enabling you to comply with its regulations and undertake a disabled access assessment of your workplace.

Here is a summary of what you will have learned on your journey through our site.

DISCRIMINATION

What does this mean for your premises?

• You need to consider if and how any disabled customers can gain access to your premises, customer services areas etc and ensure that they are not disadvantaged by their disability in doing so. 
• Reasonable adjustments need to be made to allow access to customers, e.g. ramps fitted where there are steps, walkways made wide enough for a wheelchair to move, handrails where there are lots of steps or uneven ground etc. Also consider whether a wheelchair user, blind person or deaf person can be served at your counters / reception areas.
• If it is not possible to make physical changes to allow access then you need to look at how you can adapt your service, e.g. providing a bell for a disabled person to ring so one of your staff can be called to them.
• Regarding staff, you must not discriminate during recruitment and ongoing staff development because of disability. You need to consider what adjustments can be made to enable the person to work (e.g. lower desk for a wheelchair user).

What is considered as a disability?

• Basically, this is anyone with a long-term adverse effect on his or her mental and/or physical health. Long term means one year or more and includes people applying for work as well as those who are already employed.
• Disability includes those people with recognised mental disorders as well as physical.

Consider the following:

• Wheelchair users
• People with severe visual impairment
• Someone with a long term psychological disorder (e.g. schizophrenia)
• Someone with poor manual dexterity (eg bad arthritis)
• People who are fully/ partially deaf
• People with long-term conditions affecting their balance (e.g. Vertigo, Parkinson's disease, MS).

Click here to download a Copy of 'A Disabled Access Assessment Form'

Greater detail on the new DDA Regulations can be found at the Disability Rights Commission website.