Which areas of life can the DDA help me with?

It can help with:

• employment
• education
• access to goods, facilities, transport and services, including insurance
• buying, renting or managing land or property

Employment

All employers have to consider you on an individual basis for your suitability to do a job. The only exceptions to this are jobs in the armed forces, which are not covered by the Disability Discrimination Act.

It’s illegal for employers to discriminate against you because you have epilepsy unless they have a very good reason to do so. This covers all areas of employment, including the following:

• job advertisements
• application forms
• interviews
• job offers
• terms of employment
• training or promotion opportunities
• dismissal or redundancy.

Education

People who are involved in your education should make sure that you are treated as well as anybody else who doesn’t have epilepsy. For example, a school could not refuse to admit you, just because you have epilepsy.

Education providers include:

• schools
• colleges
• universities
• providers of adult education

Access to goods, facilities, transport and services, including insurance

People or organisations that provide any kind of goods, facilities or services (including free services) have to ensure that they do not discriminate against disabled people. Service providers must not refuse to provide you with a service, or provide the service to a worse standard, for a reason related to your epilepsy.

For example, a restaurant owner must not refuse to serve you a meal because they fear that it would upset the other customers if you had a seizure.

Service providers also have to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ in the way they provide their services. For example, they could make sure there is a quiet area for you to recover, if you had a seizure.

Here are some examples of service providers:

• shops
• cafes/restaurants
• banks
• places of worship
• cinemas
• toddler groups
• transport companies, including trains, buses, coaches, trams and taxis.

Buying, renting or managing land or property

There are rules for landlords and other people connected with selling, letting or managing land or property. They mustn’t treat you less well than somebody else, for a reason relating to your epilepsy. For example, landlords can’t refuse to rent a property to you just because you have epilepsy.