Posted By Fred Pratley Alistar, I have a little experience of the scheme. Its primarily aimed at defraying much of the cost of supplying additional equipment to keep a person in work who becomes disabled, over and above that which you would be expected to provide by making "reasonable" adjustment for a disabled person under DDA. In this particular instance, we supported an individual who was slowly losing his vision, by installing CCTV to magnify part numbers which he could then read to check items and inspect them. Most of the cost (about 80%) was funded by the job centre people. i don't think you get funding for the risk assessment side, but the whole is a cooperative effort so talk directly with the job centre people. regards Fred

Posted By Kieran J Duignan Alistair A CMIOSH and ergonomist, I have provided ergonomic risk assessments funded by the Access to Work scheme. They can be wide ranging and are based on bona fide assessment. An important condition is that the application originates from the employee (or self-employed person). JobCentre Staff I've liaised with have been positively v. helpful and relatively speedy.

Posted By Alexander Falconer Hi All, I have experienced the Access to Work system, I agree that this is a bona fide system that really benefits disabled employees and their employers by providing grants (often to 100%, depending on costs involved) to purchase equipment to assist the disabled employee to continue their job in the same manner as a non disabled employees. Having suffered a hearing impairment as a child, Access to work have kindly funded the likes of Textphones & Text mobiles for me, without I wouldn't really be able to function as effectively as a H&S practitioner. I was surprised to hear that Ergonomic Risk assessments were funded, then thinking about it, you really require to assess the disabled employee and their actual mobility, to determine which equipment would be suited to their needs. Normally all job centres/areas have an area disability advisor who can point you in the right direction. Hope this helps Alex

Posted By Kieran J Duignan ... just a brief comment in relation to the expressed 'surprise' about 'ergonomic' risk assessment. This appears to be based on an outdated view that 'ergonomics' is restricted to physical impairment and in particular due to mobility and postural safety. As The Ergonomics Society has been attempting to establish since it was created in 1949, the scope of ergonomics includes all human factors, psychological and physical. Psychological support for compatibility of disabled people at work extends, for example, to support for adults with reading difficulties where an ergonomic risk assessment identifies tasks they perform that could be performed better with software that assists them in such a task. It is taking insurers far, far longer to recognise developments in ergonomics since the 1980s than it has JobCentre Plus!

Posted By Philby' We also have a few staff members who were assisted to work, but, one word of warning and a possible solution.... No staff parking and the localle has time limited parking restrictions for ALL users....on or off yellow lines, in parking bays and also in the disabled user bays....one staff member obtained a ticket, as the restriction was for 4 hours max, and in any case the blue badge clock is limited to 4hrs anyway... We are speaking to ourselves (as the LA) to address by getting a specific bay or an extended time blue badge...the badge is on the way, it pays to talk to the LA!