Mental health at work and discrimination

The law prohibiting unlawful discrimination against the disabled is contained in the Equality Act 2010 (EA 2010). This says that a person has a disability where a “physical or mental impairment” has a “substantial and long-term adverse effect” on his or her ability to carry out “normal day-to-day activities”.

It is the worker’s responsibility to prove that he or she is disabled. Tribunals always expect persuasive expert medical evidence of any disability (unless the employer admits that the worker is disabled). GP letters or fit notes indicating that a worker is suffering from “work-related stress” are not good enough for this purpose. On its own, “stress” is not a mental health condition protected by disability discrimination law.

To be covered by the definition of disability, a condition must have a “long-term” effect. An effect is “long-term” if it lasts for at least 12 months, or for the rest of a person’s life. Recurring conditions can amount to a disability even if they appear to have gone away, provided they are likely to recur. In practice, this need for a condition to be “long-term” often excludes reactive work-related depression caused by adverse life events such as redundancy, from the statutory definition of disability.