How to: cater to clients with a disability

As a salon owner, nail technician or mobile therapist, you want to open up your business to more customers and provide the best in treatments and experience; but are you making it easy and welcoming for those with a disability to choose you?

According to disability charity, Scope, 13.9 million people in the UK live with a disability. If you aren’t making it easy for them to access your services, you could be missing out on a huge chunk of the potential market and restricting your client base. Not only this, but you could be breaking the law if your business has not made reasonable adjustments to cater to those with a disability that seek to enjoy your services.

Learn the legalities
The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society, and addresses the need for businesses to ensure that a disabled person can use a service in as much as the same way as non-disabled people. Equality law recognises that bringing about equality for disabled people may mean changing the way in which services are delivered, providing extra equipment and/or the removal of physical barriers, resulting in the duty of a business to make reasonable adjustments when necessary.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission states:
‘If you are providing goods, facilities or services to the public or a section of the public, carrying out public functions or running an association and you find there are barriers to disabled people in the way you do things, then you must consider making adjustments. If those adjustments are reasonable for you and your organisation to make, then you must make them.’

Ultimately, if your business discriminates towards those with a disability of any kind, it is your duty to amend the way that you operate. This duty is anticipatory, meaning that you can’t wait until a disabled person wants to use your services, but must think in advance – and on an on-going basis – about what they might need to comfortably enjoy your services.

There are three requirements of the duty that apply in situations where a disabled person would otherwise be placed at a substantial disadvantage compared with people who are not disabled. These requirements are:

1. Changing the way things are done. Equality law talks about where the disabled service user is put at a substantial disadvantage by a provision, criterion or practice of the service provider.
2. Making changes to overcome barriers created by the physical features of your premises.
3. Providing extra aids and services such as equipment or a different, additional service (called auxiliary aids or auxiliary services). You must take reasonable steps to provide auxiliary aids or services if this would enable, or make it easier for, disabled people to make use of your services.

When considering any potential adjustments, try asking yourself whether the way you do things, any physical feature of your presence, or the absence of an auxiliary aid or service puts disabled people at a substantial disadvantage compared with people who are not disabled, advises the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Anything that arises that is more than minor is classed as a substantial disadvantage and therefore the duty to make reasonable adjustments arises.

For more information visit www.equalityhumanrights.com

For advice from nail techs about how best to accommodate those with specific needs, turn to page 112 in the August 2018 issue of Scratch!