Ms R Macintyre v Represented by:10 Mr B Nichol - Solicitor Greater Glasgow & Clyde Health Board — 2024

This was a public preliminary hearing on the claimant’s disability status under the Equality Act 2010. The claimant had been employed by the respondent since around 14 February 2005. The tribunal noted that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2015, but the claimant did not rely on that diagnosis for this claim; she relied instead on a physical impairment affecting her knees, back and legs, following a fall at work on 1 September 2020 and a subsequent onset of back pain in July 2021.

The tribunal accepted the claimant’s evidence and the medical material, including reports from November 2022, February 2023 and June 2024. It found that the knee-related effects included hypersensitivity to touch, difficulty kneeling, difficulty sleeping when her knees or shins were touched, reduced ability to attend concerts and do gardening, and difficulty carrying shopping bags. It also found that the back and leg-related effects included severe lower back pain, a period of being bedbound for around four months, limited walking and driving, difficulty travelling, and difficulty bathing.

Applying section 6 Equality Act 2010 and the Schedule 1 long-term test, the tribunal held that the claimant had a physical impairment, that it had a substantial adverse effect on normal day-to-day activities, and that the effects were long term. It rejected the respondent’s submissions that the knee effects were not substantial and that the back difficulties were questionable because one examination recorded the back as normal. The tribunal also accepted that where the claimant’s back pain was being controlled by co-codamol, the impairment should be treated as substantially adverse because the untreated effect could well happen.

The tribunal therefore concluded that the claimant was a disabled person within section 6 Equality Act 2010 during the relevant period by reason of a physical impairment related to her knees, back and legs. No remedy was determined in this judgment because the hearing was limited to the preliminary disability issue.