Duty to make interim disability adjustments

Short answer

Yes, in principle. The duty to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010 does not wait until your university’s disability service has completed a formal assessment. It is an anticipatory and continuing duty, and once staff have knowledge, or ought reasonably to have knowledge, that you are a disabled person likely to be placed at a substantial disadvantage, the obligation to take reasonable steps is already live. A formal assessment is an internal administrative process the university uses to identify and record adjustments. It is not a legal precondition for the duty to exist. That said, whether a particular urgent adjustment is legally required in the interim depends on what is reasonable in the circumstances, and the extent of the university’s knowledge is relevant to that.

The legal framework

The relevant law is the Equality Act 2010. Section 20 sets out the duty to make reasonable adjustments, and it applies where a provision, criterion or practice puts a disabled person at a substantial disadvantage compared with people who are not disabled. In that situation the responsible body must take such steps as it is reasonable to have to take to avoid the disadvantage. Section 91 and Schedule 13 apply this duty specifically to further and higher education providers, including universities.

Two features matter for your question.

First, the duty on education providers is described as anticipatory. Under Schedule 13, universities must anticipate the needs of disabled students generally and put adjustments in place in advance, rather than only reacting to an individual request or diagnosis. This was reinforced in University of Bristol v Abrahart [2024] EWHC 299 (KB), where the High Court stressed that higher education institutions must proactively structure their policies and activities to remove barriers before problems arise.

Second, and importantly for the urgency point, the courts have indicated that the existence of the anticipatory duty does not itself depend on the university having knowledge of your particular disability. Knowledge becomes relevant when deciding whether it was reasonable to expect the university to have made a specific individual adjustment. So the absence of a completed assessment does not switch the duty off, but it can affect what staff can reasonably be expected to do at a given moment.

Where an internal assessment fits in

The formal assessment carried out by a disability or student support service is the university’s mechanism for identifying, agreeing and documenting individual adjustments, often in a support plan or similar document. It is good practice and helps the university discharge its duty, but it is not the source of the legal obligation. A university cannot use its own internal process as a blanket reason to refuse or delay all adjustments if it already knows, or ought to know, that you are disabled and at a substantial disadvantage in the meantime.

This is particularly relevant where there is a real and immediate disadvantage, for example an imminent examination, assessment deadline, placement, or a situation affecting your health or safety, and waiting weeks for an assessment would itself cause the very disadvantage the duty exists to prevent. In those circumstances there is a strong argument that reasonable interim steps should be taken now, rather than deferred until the assessment is complete.

What “reasonable” means in the interim

Whether a specific urgent adjustment must be made before assessment is judged by what is reasonable. Factors that typically matter include how much the university already knows about your condition and its effects, how significant and immediate the disadvantage is, how practical and effective the proposed adjustment is, the cost and disruption involved, and whether a light-touch temporary measure could hold the position until the assessment is done.

A useful distinction is between simple, low-risk interim measures and more involved or resource-heavy adjustments. Straightforward temporary steps, for example a short deadline extension, permission to record lectures, a rest break, a temporary alternative arrangement for an imminent assessment, or provisional exam access measures, are often reasonable to grant quickly on the information already available, especially if you can provide some supporting evidence. More complex or costly adjustments, or ones that affect academic competence standards, may legitimately await proper assessment. Note that the duty to adjust does not extend to lowering a genuine competence standard, though it does apply to how that standard is assessed.

What will strengthen your position

The more the university knows, the harder it is for staff to justify doing nothing pending assessment. Practical steps to build that knowledge and create a clear record include the following.

1. Put your request in writing to the relevant staff, for example the module leader, personal tutor and the disability service, setting out clearly that you consider yourself disabled, the substantial disadvantage you face, the specific interim adjustment you are asking for, and why it is urgent, with the relevant date or deadline.

2. Provide whatever supporting evidence you have, such as a GP letter, diagnostic report, hospital letter or existing documentation, even if a full assessment is pending. Some evidence of the disability and its effects makes an interim adjustment much more clearly reasonable.

3. Ask expressly for interim or temporary adjustments pending the formal assessment, rather than only asking for the assessment to be brought forward. Framing it as a request for reasonable adjustments engages the Equality Act duty directly.

4. Keep a dated record of what you asked, when, and how staff responded. This is important evidence if there is later a dispute.

If the university refuses or simply delays

If staff refuse all interim adjustments purely on the basis that you have not yet been assessed, and you suffer a substantial disadvantage as a result, that may amount to a failure to make reasonable adjustments and potentially disability discrimination under the Equality Act. Sensible escalation, roughly in order, would be as follows.

1. Raise it promptly with the disability service and the relevant academic staff, asking them to expedite the assessment and to put temporary measures in place now.

2. If that fails, use the university’s formal complaints procedure, referring expressly to its duties under the Equality Act 2010 and its own disability and reasonable adjustments policy.

3. If the internal complaint does not resolve matters, you can ask for a Completion of Procedures letter and take the complaint to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, which handles student complaints against most higher education providers in England and Wales.

4. A discrimination claim under the Equality Act in the county court is also possible, but it carries cost, delay and litigation risk and is normally a last resort, subject to a time limit of six months less one day from the act complained of. Early advice matters if this route is being considered, because the time limit is tight.

Key points that depend on missing facts

The strength of your position turns on several things you have not set out, and different scenarios change the answer.

If you have already told the university about your disability and provided some evidence, the case for immediate interim adjustments is strong, and unexplained delay is difficult to justify. If the university genuinely has no information yet, the anticipatory duty still exists but the reasonableness of any specific individual adjustment is weaker until you supply the relevant facts, so the priority is to give them that information quickly.

If the adjustment relates to an imminent, fixed deadline or examination, urgency weighs heavily in favour of interim action. If there is no immediate disadvantage and the assessment is scheduled soon, a short wait may be reasonable.

It would also help to know what the adjustment actually is, what evidence you hold, what the university has said so far, and what the relevant deadline is, because those determine both what is reasonable and how forcefully you can press for action now.