Epilepsy- seizures- too expensive- reasonable adjustments.

ashley_london

My partner had a seizure in January. He got diagnosed with epilepsy in March and got put on seizure medication. He can't drive for 12 months and occupational health said he couldn't work up ladders and work alone for 6 months (light work load). He is an electrician. Occupational health agreed he was safe to continue doing this job.

Today, his boss has offered him a settlement. We both feel it is discrimination. Here's why-

Resonable adjustments-

Lone working-

Other co workers work together. He got told this was no longer happening and they can't afford to put 2 workers together 5 days a week. He asked if maybe he could do part time instead so if cheaper, they said no.

He asked if they could maybe pay for a lone worker alarm so he could work alone after 6 months. They just made a note of this.

Travelling to work -

I agreed to drop my partner to someone else's house to be brought to work or to jobs locally as I'm on maternity leave for another 2 months. They wrote this down.

He agreed he could take public transport to jobs too.

They concluded every reasonable adjustment raised wasn't able to be done due to cost. Offered him a settlement in which he will have 10 days to decide or just take redundancy for a lower figure. The settlement isn't a huge figure and will only cover our bills for 2 months. It is only a small company.

My question is...

Would anyone else class this as discrimination? We do class his epilepsy as a disability as it has changed his life. I'd love to hear if anyone has similar stories as I can't find anything online. I know we've got the option to take to to tribunal but if there's no case here , we don't want the added stress.

Many thanks all xx

Albus_Scope

Hey there @ashley_london and a warm welcome to the community.

It sounds like a very difficult time for you both, I'm so sorry. I hope your partner's doing ok, and I hope you are too.

I can't really say if it's discrimination or not here as I doubt it's a black and white situation for the company. I'm not trained in employment law, but I'm guessing working alone as an electrician with epilepsy could possibly be seen as a health and safety risk to the company and your partner?
The public transport bit is a bit odd though!

As said, we can't give legal advice here, but I can recommend speaking to the fine people at ACAS, who specialise in this kind of situation.