Disabled Clients

It is clear from a recent Court of Appeal decision that service providers must ensure proper access to their services is available is available to people with a disability and simply making some adjustments may not be sufficient to comply with the terms of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

A high street bank was recently ordered to undertake almost £200,000 of building work at one of it's branches in order to ensure that it's full range of services were available to wheelchair-bound customers.  This was deemed to be a reasonable adjustment.

Many buildings do not easily lend themselves to providing suitable access for disabled customers and particularly where the building is listed or there are other physical constraints it is sometimes difficult to comply.  The Court of Appeal however have indicated that full compliance is expected even though this may involve substantial cost.

Of course, there are other ways of complying with the requirements and in some instances, for example, it may be possible to arrange for services to be provided at alternative, compliant premises or even in the customer's own home.

If you are a service provider this may be a timely reminder for you to review your arrangements to ensure any disabled customers will be able to obtain full access to your entire range of services.  If you are not currently fully compliant you should take the opportunity to review what alternative arrangements may be appropriate to ensure compliance and avoid the possibility of injunction proceedings being taken.

It is also worth mentioning that the same obligations apply to any employees of a business as much as to their customers.