The Reasonable Adjustment Flag is a national record that shows a person needs accommodations and may include details about their impairments and necessary adjustments.
If you are a patient or carer of a patinet who you feel may benefit from a Reasonable Adjustment Flag on you record please let a member of the practice team know. We will not add a Reasonable Adjustment Flag to your record without your consent.
Under the Equality Act 2010, organisations have a legal duty to make changes in their approach or provision to ensure that services are as accessible to people with disabilities as they are for everybody else. These changes are called reasonable adjustments.
The Reasonable Adjustment Flag was developed in the NHS Spine to enable health and care workers to record, share and view details of reasonable adjustments across the NHS, wherever the person is treated.
Benefits
- The Flag is immediately visible (to reception staff, as permitted by local role-based access controls) when the patient is referred or presents for care, often when no other information is available.
- It will ensure that details of impairments and other key information (such as communication requirements) are shared consistently across the NHS – with patient consent.
- Supports carers to feel less stressed by informing them of adjustments to services.
- It can help to reduce stress both for the patient and those treating them.
What we mean by reasonable adjustments
Under the Equality Act 2010 public sector organisations have to make changes in their approach or provision to ensure that services are accessible to disabled people as well as everybody else. Reasonable adjustments can mean alterations to buildings by providing lifts, wide doors, ramps and tactile signage, but may also mean changes to policies, procedures and staff training to ensure that services work equally well for people with learning disabilities.
For example, people with learning disabilities may require :
- clear, simple and possibly repeated explanations of what’s happening and of treatments
- help with appointments
- help with managing issues of consent in line with the Mental Capacity Act
Public sector organisations shouldn’t simply wait and respond to difficulties as they emerge: the duty on them is ‘anticipatory’, meaning they have to think out what’s likely to be needed in advance.
All organisations that provide NHS or adult social care must follow the accessible information standard by law. The standard aims to make sure that people who have a disability, impairment or sensory loss are provided with information that they can easily read or understand with support so they can communicate effectively with health and social care services.