Guidance for Applicants

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 defines a disability as a “physical or mental impairment which has substantial and long term adverse effect on a person’s ability to carry out normal day to day activities”.

Physical Impairment: This includes, for instance, a weakening of part of the body (eyes, ears, limbs, internal organs, etc.) caused through illness, by accident or from birth. Examples would be blindness, deafness, paralysis of a leg or heart disease.

Mental impairment: This includes mental ill health and what is commonly known as learning disability.

Substantial: put simply, this means the effect of the physical or mental impairment on ability to carry out normal day to day activities is more than minor or trivial.  It does not have to be a severe effect.

Long-term adverse effect: the effect has to have lasted, or be likely to last, overall for at least twelve months and the effect must be a detrimental one.  A person with a life expectancy of less than twelve months is, of course, covered if the effect is likely to last for the whole of that time.

A normal day to day activity: this is something which is carried out by most people on a fairly regular and frequent basis, such as washing, eating, catching a bus or turning on a television.  It does not mean something so individual as playing a musical instrument to a             professional standard or doing everything involved in a particular job.

The person must be affected in at least one of the respects listed in the DDA:

• mobility;
• manual dexterity;
• physical coordination;
• continence;
• ability to lift, carry or otherwise move everyday objects;
• speech, hearing or eyesight;
• memory or ability to concentrate, learn or understand; or
• perception of risk of physical danger.

If the effects of the disability are reduced by medication or other treatment, then the relevant effects are those that would be present if there was no medication or treatment taking place.  There is an exception to this rule for people who wear spectacles or contact lenses, then the relevant effects are those that remain while the spectacles or contact lenses are being used.

Changes to the definition of disability were made by the Disability Discrimination (NI) Order and came into effect on 31 October 2007. From that date, people who develop cancer, HIV or MS are protected from disability discrimination from the point of diagnosis (and not from the point where the condition affects their ability to carry out day to day activities). 

The following conditions specifically do not count as impairments:

• addiction to or dependency on alcohol, nicotine or any other substance (unless resulting from the substance being medically prescribed);
• seasonal allergic rhinitis (e.g. hay fever) unless it aggravates the effect of another condition; 
• tendency to set fires, or steal, or physically or sexually abuse other persons; 
• exhibitionism and voyeurism; and
• disfigurements consisting of tattoos, non-medical body piercing or attachments to such piercing are not treated as having substantial adverse effects.

Much of the DDA also applies to people who have had a disability in the past for example, someone who was disabled by mental ill health but who has now fully recovered.  People who were registered disabled under the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act (Northern Ireland) 1945 both on 12 January 1995 and 2 December 1996 will be regarded as having had a disability in the past, if they do not otherwise fall within the definition of the DDA.

The guidance which follows contains examples of conditions which might give rise to particular categories of disability.

Hearing impairment: For example, being deaf or hard of hearing. If you wear a hearing aid which brings your level on a par with the average, you are still considered to have a disability.

Visual impairment: For example, being registered blind or partially sighted. If your sight is corrected by the use of spectacles or contact lenses this is not considered a disability.

Speech impairment: For example, being unable to speak, or having difficulty in speaking.

Mobility impairment: For example, being able to walk only limited distances; having difficulty walking other than slowly or with unsteady or jerky movements; having difficulty sitting, standing, bending or reaching; having difficulty climbing stairs, or using a normal means of transport; needing to use a walking stick, crutches or wheelchair.

Physical co-ordination difficulties: This relates to balanced and effective interaction of body movement, including hand and eye co-ordination, and might include, for example, problems of manual dexterity and of muscular control, e.g. incontinence, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease.

Reduced physical capacity: This includes debilitating pain and lack of strength, breath, energy or stamina, such as might arise, for example, from cardiovascular conditions, asthma, diabetes. It may also result from progressive conditions, e.g. muscular dystrophy, cancer, multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS. (The DDA provides for people with these progressive conditions to be regarded as having a disability from the point of diagnosis.)

Severe disfigurement: Examples of disfigurements include scars, birthmarks, limb or postural deformation or diseases of the skin. A tattoo is not considered as a severe disfigurement.

Learning difficulties: For example, reading or writing with difficulty.

Mental illness: For example, having schizophrenia, clinical depression, severe phobias. (There is no longer a requirement that a mental health condition is ‘clinically well recognised’ before it can count as an impairment under disability discrimination law.)

Manual dexterity: For example, loss of function in one or both hands.

Perception of the risk of physical danger: For example, underestimating or overestimating physical danger.