Disability Discrimination Act 1995-DDA

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 is an overriding piece of UK legislation, designed to prevent discrimination against disabled people. Whilst Part II of the DDA gives disabled employees rights against their employers, Part III of the DDA gives disabled members of the public access rights to goods, facilities and services.

The Act makes it unlawful for people and companies who provide goods, facilities or services to the public to discriminate against disabled people which includes a wide range of mental, physical and sensory disabilities. Those covered embrace wheelchairs users, blind and partially sighted people, the deaf and hard of hearing, people with arthritis, people with long-term illnesses and people with learning disabilities.

Fully in force since October 2004, the Act requires that service providers consider making reasonable adjustments to their premises in order to overcome physical barriers to access. As such all service providers need to ensure that no unlawful discrimination occurs, that is to say that a disable person is treated less favourably than someone who is not disabled and where that treatment can not be justified.

Failure to make alterations to a property or facility or to change the way in which a service is offered which makes it impossible, or unreasonably difficult, for a disabled person could amount to unlawful discrimination. If this feature cannot be changed, the service provider must find an alternative way of providing the service, where this is reasonable. This is similar to the provisions affecting the duties of employers to their employees which are already in force.

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