Long-term health condition and disability (physical or mental health)
Make sure to contact Student Wellbeing and Inclusivity (SWAI) as soon as possible if you have a long-term health condition or disability. The University aims to support you with your condition through a range of different services and can put reasonable adjustments in place to support you in achieving your full academic potential.
What we mean by long-term health condition and disability (physical or mental health)
Long-term health condition and disability is the term used to describe a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term (12 months or more) effect on your ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. Within your studies, examinations and assessments are considered as day-to-day activities.
Examples of such conditions might include but is not limited to:
- Physical and sensory disabilities.
- Neurodiversity (e.g. dyslexia, ADHD, dyspraxia).
- A mental health condition which is either episodic in nature or of an indeterminate length (e.g. bipolar disorder).
- An autistic spectrum condition (e.g. Asperger’s Syndrome).
- A long-term health condition (e.g. chronic fatigue syndrome, Crohn’s disease, epilepsy).
- Medical conditions with potentially long-term effects but where the prognosis is currently unclear.
- Progressive illnesses (e.g. Systemic Lupus Erythematosis (SLE), HIV and cancer) from the point of diagnosis.
- Short-term acute mental distress (e.g. after a traumatic incident such as a bereavement) which is potentially affecting mental health.
What support is available to you
The University has a range of different services to support you with your long-term health condition and disability. In particular, the Student Wellbeing and Inclusivity, Student Wellbeing Team and the Disability Support Team can provide information, advice, guidance and support for students. SWAI can also arrange for appropriate reasonable adjustments to be made to your teaching and assessment practices. It is hoped this pro-active support adjusts the circumstances which may lead to an MC claim, though of course we recognise this will not always be the case.
Should you submit a Mitigating Circumstances claim
The University aims to support students with long-term health conditions and disabilities outside of the Mitigating Circumstances (MC) process. However, we recognise that there can be unexpected circumstances that might negatively impact your performance, for example:
- Unforeseen events that have made a well-managed condition more challenging or existing reasonable adjustments not sufficient – You can view your current list of reasonable adjustments via Student Self-Service
- Sudden or unexpected changes to the severity of your condition
- Delays, due to reasons beyond your control, to the University implementing reasonable adjustments for your study and assessments
Please note that you should not submit a claim for a long-term health condition or disability if the University has already put in place reasonable adjustments for assessments in a timely manner.
What your Mitigating Circumstances claim for long-term health condition and disability should include
- As much detail as possible on your long-term health condition and disability including your diagnosis and whether it fluctuates or remains constant
- A full explanation outlining how your circumstance(s) has impacted your academic performance in your assessment(s)
- Which assessment(s) were impacted by the circumstances outlined in your claim by selecting the relevant components on the online form.
- If you can provide evidence that will verify and support your claim, you should include this. However, we recognise that it can be challenging to gather evidence for some claims so please submit your claim anyway. Please note that you should NOT submit photographic evidence of injuries or illness.
- If you have received support from Student Wellbeing and Inclusivity (SWAI) for the circumstances outlined in your claim, you can ask SWAI to provide the evidence via the tick box in Student Self-Service.