Law
What the Law says
The Disability Discrimination Act (1995) was introduced to prevent discrimination against disabled people.
Who is a disabled person?
The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) uses a broad definition of disability that embraces people with a range of impairments.
Examples include:
- People who are blind or partially sighted
- People who are deaf or hard of hearing
- People who have heart conditions
- People with epilepsy
- People who have problems with continence.
- People who have insulin dependent diabetes.
- People with Downs Syndrome
- People with Dyslexia
- People who have arthritis
- People who are wheelchair users
- People who have experienced mental health problems
- People with learning difficulties.
Consequently a good proportion of your existing guests may fall into the definition used in the Act. Not all disabilities are immediately obvious or visible.
What does the DDA expect you to do?
Since 1995 it has been illegal to refuse to serve somebody on the grounds that they have a disability. For example, it would be illegal to refuse to take a booking from a guest simply because they had a disability.
The Act also covers deliberately providing a poorer quality of service to disabled people, for example taking longer to serve a disabled person, or applying terms that are unreasonable, such as asking for a higher deposit or charging a disabled customer more than non-disabled guests.
Since 1999 service providers have been expected to provide auxiliary aids and services to disabled customers and to amend their policies, practices and procedures so that disabled people can better access their services.
Auxiliary aids could include having an induction loop system on a television in a communal lounge so that hard of hearing guests can access television.
An auxiliary service could include serving a guest breakfast in their room if they were unable to access the dining room because of a physical barrier such as steps.
Changing policy could include amending a 'no dogs' policy so that guests with assistance dogs are admitted.
Changing practice and procedure could be something as simple as making sure that staff leave visually impaired guests belongings in the places that they were left rather than tidying away their things when cleaning a room.
From October 2004 the DDA expected service providers to take reasonable measures to remove, alter or provide a reasonable means of avoiding any physical barriers to accessing and using their premises.
From October 2004 the employment requirements of the DDA changed. Until that time the DDA only applied to employers with 15 or more full time staff. In 2004 the employment provision applied to all employers. Further information about the employment requirements is available from the Equality and Human Rights Commission helpline and website.
Reasonable adjustments
The DDA expects service providers to make 'reasonable adjustments' to physical premises so that they better meet the requirements of disabled people.
Deciding what is reasonable includes a number of key factors. Importantly the resources of the organisation concerned (financial, human and physical) will be taken into account. What this means is that the way in which a major hotel chain responds to the requirements of disabled customers may be different to the way in which a business run by a sole proprietor operates. This does not mean that small businesses can ignore the requirements of the legislation. However it does indicate that the law recognises that different approaches can be used that reflect the size and nature of a particular business. It is also important to recognise that the law does not expect organisations to have to respond to unreasonable requests.
There is also a code of practice that covers goods, facilities and services which is available from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The code is not the law but can be used by the courts to determine cases. The code also states that service providers must anticipate the likely requirements of disabled guests not just respond to requests from individuals.
This means that you should have thought through your services from the perspective of individual disabled guests. You should have already critically evaluated your services from the perspective of disabled guests and considered what additional aids, changes to day-to day practices or physical changes could be made to better accommodate the requirements of disabled guests. It also means giving reasonable consideration to requests for additional services made by disabled visitors.
(Last Updated: 12-02-2008)