Can my daughter request reasonable adjustments for new catering duties?

[Mackerelfillets]

My adult daughter (adopted as a baby) has foetal alcohol syndrome. She works as a cleaner in a hospital but also does tea/coffee runs and hands out meals. She has been told that going forward she may be asked to do catering as well. This is in her contract but she has never been asked to do it before. This is more than she is capable of as it involves timings, fridge and oven temperatures and various procedures and checks. She's told us if they make her do it she will quit. She's 24 but acts much younger. We know that she is covered to some extent by the Disability Discrimination Act. Can she take her paperwork in and ask them to make reasonable adjustments ie. Not make her do this aspect of the role or can she be fired? The other aspect of this is she isn't able to ask this herself, we would have to do it for/with her.

The standard refusal due to not fully understanding sounds familiar.

it’s really hard when your kids are adults and still need advocacy. Even more so if they arnt visibly disabled. My son runs a really good nod and smile emulator and often misses the point completely. Yet people often assume he is really bright (he is in that he can memorise facts and presents as very laid back and personable) when in fact he really struggles with many aspects of practical tasks due to sequencing and other issues and struggles with anxiety around unfamiliar people because of effort needed to work out what they expect from him.

anyway I wanted to say thanks to whoever mentioned unions. I did talk to son about this before but got the default no. Texted him again about it tonight and he’s going to mention it to support worker.

which leads me to another thing, has your daughter applied for Access To Work support? You can only get it once you are in a job but they will often fund some kind of support, it’s certainly worth looking into to. My son talks to a support worker once a month and they help him interpret and navigate his workplace, devise coping strategies and so on.

im just trying to get him to a point where he doesn’t automatically default to me for support and I think he’s making huge progress now thankfully. He will always need some level of support to work and live independently so I want him to feel ok engaging with it when he needs to.

Isn’t this post an eye opener to
reality
MN awash with posters bemoaning the benefits system, particularly the volume of PIP claimants
here are 2 young people with disabilities who want to work but in effect being forced out by the ‘must not be criticised’ NHS
and yes I do understand capability and reasonable adjustments, still feels so wrong

Why would they have freshly made food for the patients? In most hospitals there is a large menu of ready meals. The only fresh things would be salad and jacket potatoes. They do have sandwiches which might be made on site but they are usually horrible. She would still need food hygiene certificate so they'd have to train her.

True but within your post lies another common misunderstanding about PIP, as benefits are to supplement low wages or help people out of work/unable to work and as such are related to NI contributions.

PIP is to help with the extra costs of disability and nothing to do with being in or out of work and as such isn’t connected to NI contributions.

I worked in this area supporting claimants for many years and know disabled people who work (some of them very talented in really high level jobs) - they all claim PIP to help with costs.

Obviously there is the mobility issue so mobility cars etc but there are so many hidden costs that you just wouldn’t be aware of until you are in that situation.
Because the sickness benefits system has taken such a hammering people are claiming PIP to plug the gaps hence the common misunderstanding of its status.

the NHS are just having to deal with the realities of the massive imbalances in our economy (in short, we have no assets, are in massive debt and are unable to borrow anymore and have no coherent plan to tax the top 5% some of the 25% they have of our annual GDP)
it’s going to be a rough ride, especially for the middle classes.