Educational institutions and placement providers across England, Wales, and Scotland are legally required to support disabled learners under the Equality Act 2010. In Northern Ireland, equality legislation is governed by the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995, as modified by the Disability Discrimination (Northern Ireland) Order 2006. This is supplemented with other orders such as the Special Education Needs and Disability Order 2005.

The Equality Act 2010 defines a disability as “A person with a physical or mental impairment, and the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on the person’s ability to perform normal day-to-day activities.”

The laws outlined in the Equality Act 2010 and DDA protect the rights of disabled students by providing enhanced protection against discrimination. They also outline clear individual and institutional responsibilities to make reasonable adjustments when a student faces significant disadvantage due to their disability, ensuring equitable access to education. For our Orthoptic learners, this duty extends to all aspects of education, including both the educational institution and practice placements.

Key legal obligations include:

• Implementing reasonable adjustments: Reasonable adjustments are changes made to the learning environment, teaching methods, and/ or assessment processes to minimise or remove disadvantages faced by disabled learners. These adjustments comply with the Equality Act 2010 and are designed to meet individual needs without compromising academic or professional standards. Institutions must proactively make changes to accommodate the needs of disabled students, ensuring they can participate in educational activities on an equitable basis. These adjustments are designed to remove barriers to education and provide equity to disabled students.
• Ensuring education accessibility: Institutions must foster an inclusive learning environment so that all learners, including disabled learners, have equitable and unrestricted access to educational resources. This involves making reasonable adjustments to physical spaces, ensuring both online and in-person learning materials are accessible, user-friendly, and can be adapted to meet diverse needs.
• Promoting an inclusive culture: We strive to create a learning environment where both learners and educators feel valued, supported, and included. Our aim is to continue promoting a culture that not only welcomes but celebrates and encourages diversity. Institutions and practice placement sites actively promote diversity and equality through inclusive policies and practices.

The HCPC believes that disabled people positively contribute to the orthoptic profession due to unique experiences and perspectives that benefit service users. They emphasise that having a long-term condition or impairment is not seen as a barrier to entering the orthoptic profession, as long as individuals can meet the required standards of proficiency. The HCPC guidance (Health, disability and becoming a health and care professional) offers essential information for disabled applicants on applying to approved programs and outlines best practices for university admissions staff when assessing applications.

On application to an approved programme students will have the opportunity to disclose their disability to the education provider. This information is shared in a safe and confidential manner, it is strongly recommended that learners share this information, so appropriate support is provided. After the application process, educational providers may request applicants or enrolled learners to undergo occupational health assessments to better understand how to support them effectively throughout their training.

On completion of training, individuals will be required to register with the HCPC to practice. As part of this process, applicants must submit a health declaration confirming whether they have a health condition or disability that could impact their ability to practice the profession. According to the HCPC:

• Applicants do not need to disclose any long-term condition or impairment if it does not affect their ability to practice safely or if they can adapt, limit, or stop their practice if necessary.
  If registrants manage their health condition appropriately and demonstrate insight and understanding of their long-term condition, this will not prevent them from registering with the HCPC.
• In some cases, a disability may prevent an individual from training or practicing in their chosen profession. In these cases, no reasonable adjustments can enable the individual to meet the required standards of proficiency. In orthoptics, certain aspects of practice rely on essential visual capabilities to detect ocular abnormalities accurately. As this is critical for safe and effective practice, it cannot always be fully accommodated through reasonable adjustments.