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Waiting for Access to Work: How to Support Staff with Sight or Hearing Loss in the Meantime

/ Employment, Professionals / By

By Daniel Morgan-Williams, Founding Director, Visualise Training and Consultancy Ltd.

Picture a new employee who has just started a job and has sight loss. By lunchtime on her first day she is leaning so close to the screen that her neck aches. She cannot make out the letters on the keyboard, and the text on the screen is too small to read until she enlarges it, and then it no longer fits and she loses her place halfway down. Emails take three times as long as they should. Attachments and printed papers take longer still. She goes home exhausted. She does not like to say anything, because she is new and does not want to be seen as a problem.

Her manager has heard of Access to Work and makes the application that week. Then the file joins a queue. For the next few months she carries on like this. Her manager is supportive and her employer is not unkind. Everyone is waiting for a decision from someone else.

Is that acceptable? Most HR, occupational health and health and safety professionals would say no. Yet it happens routinely, and the reason is not neglect. It is an assumption that nothing can be done until the government scheme replies.

Access to Work is a great scheme. The DWP’s own research found that people who received support described improved confidence, independence and comfort at work, and those with significant challenges considered it essential to staying in employment. Employers reported wider benefits too, including a more inclusive workplace. Demand has grown fast, and the National Audit Office noted that the DWP has roughly doubled the number of staff working on it. This article is not a criticism of the scheme. It is about what happens to a person in the weeks before the scheme can act.

Demand has grown, and so has the wait

The National Audit Office reported in February 2026 that the number of Access to Work applications awaiting a DWP decision rose from 21,700 in March 2022 to 62,100 in March 2025. The average processing time rose from 28 days in 2020 to 2021 to 66 days in 2024 to 2025, and reached 109 days in November 2025. Those are the latest figures the NAO published, and they will have moved since. The direction of travel is clear.

The DWP’s own research, Journeys to Access to Work, published in June 2026, describes what that wait means for people. It is a qualitative study of 90 applicants and 26 employers, so it shows what people experienced rather than how often. Even so, the findings are consistent. Waits ranged from weeks to months. Longer waits meant working without the right support, relying on temporary adjustments or reducing hours. Self-employed applicants described losing work because they could not take on roles without knowing support would be in place.

Access to Work was never meant to be the starting point

Access to Work funds support that goes beyond the reasonable adjustments employers are required to make under the Equality Act 2010. That is how the DWP describes the scheme, and it matters. The duty to make reasonable adjustments sits with the employer. It does not pause while an application is processed, and the Health and Safety Executive notes that where putting support in place is delayed, temporary arrangements may be needed to manage any risks to disabled workers.

The same research found that some employers were unsure which adjustments they were responsible for, so employees received only temporary or minimal support. Others had a clear understanding and put flexible working or equipment in place before Access to Work was ever discussed, and their staff coped better. The scheme is an excellent top-up. It was not designed to be the first and only door, and it works best when the employer has already made a start.

Adjustments go further than funding

The National Audit Office describes the main categories of Access to Work funding as specialist equipment and assistive software, support workers, travel to work, and the Mental Health Support Service. GOV.UK says the reasonable adjustments an employer must legally make are not funded, although Access to Work will advise on them.

That leaves a large area of practical support that sits with the employer and that no grant is designed to cover: how meetings are run, whether papers are sent in advance, where someone sits, how the lighting is set, and how colleagues introduce themselves when they speak. In Visualise’s experience, these softer adjustments are often the ones that make the most difference, and many of them cost little or nothing. The Health and Safety Executive makes a similar point, noting that many adjustments are simple and low cost.

Getting the most from an Access to Work assessment

Nothing in this section is a reason to hold back from applying. It simply helps to be clear about what the scheme is built to do and where an employer can add to it. In Visualise’s experience, the Access to Work workplace assessment centres mainly on equipment, which is exactly what the scheme is designed to fund, and it matters a great deal. Equipment is only part of what a person with sight loss needs in order to work comfortably, though. The assessment tends not to extend to wider adjustments in how the work itself is organised, or to support outside the workplace, such as help at home with daily routines, which can affect whether someone arrives at work able to do their job. Support of that kind is available through other routes, including a local council’s social care or sensory services, eye clinic liaison officers where they are in place, and charities such as RNIB and RNID.

The quality of the assessment can also depend on who carries it out. The DWP’s research heard from applicants who felt more positive when the assessor took time to understand their situation and explain the options, and from others whose assessments felt rushed or insufficiently tailored to their condition. In Visualise’s experience, a person may be lucky and get a good assessment, and even then it may last only about 20 minutes. Assessors are not always specialists in the particular condition in front of them. Where one is familiar with the person’s condition, the recommendations can be sharper, and where one is less familiar, an employer may want to add specialist input alongside it.

There is a second difficulty that no assessor can fully solve: people often do not know what they do not know. Someone who has coped alone for years, or who is new to a diagnosis, may not be aware that a certain adjustment or piece of equipment exists, so they cannot ask for it. The DWP research describes exactly this, noting applicants with low awareness of their own needs because they had coped independently for years. If the person does not know what to ask for, the assessor has to know what to offer.

Employers should also know how the money works. GOV.UK explains that where an employee has been in post for more than six weeks when they apply, the employer may be asked to share the cost of equipment and adaptations. The share depends on the size of the employer and the type of support, with Access to Work refunding the balance up to a limit. The DWP research found that some employees did not raise Access to Work at all because they feared how their employer would react to the cost share. The rules and thresholds are updated from time to time, so the current position should be checked on GOV.UK before relying on any figure.

The scheme itself is changing

Access to Work is also under review. The Government’s Pathways to Work Green Paper, published in March 2025, noted that the scheme had not been substantially changed since 1994 and consulted on its future. It set out three possible approaches: supporting employers directly to make workplaces accessible, providing targeted funds to individuals for adaptations beyond reasonable adjustments, and shaping the market for assistive technology.

The Government published its response on 30 October 2025. It reported no decision on Access to Work and said it would share its proposals in due course. On the question of funding, the most common suggestion from respondents was personalised grants, followed by employer training and incentives. In February 2026 the National Audit Office noted that the DWP was waiting for the outcome of that policy work before committing to further improvements.

No published decision was found as at November 2026, and no research on what any change is likely to mean in practice, so it would be wrong to guess. The practical point is simpler. Whichever route is taken, employers who already know how to identify and deliver adjustments will be best placed, and waiting to see what changes is just another way of leaving someone unsupported.

Why more employers do not act while they wait

No published research was found on why employers do not commission their own assessments during the wait, so what follows is a set of reasonable possibilities, not findings. An employer may assume the scheme will pay and be reluctant to spend first. They may not know what to buy, or fear buying the wrong thing. They may be unsure whether an assessment is something they can arrange themselves. The DWP research also found that some employees held back from raising Access to Work at all, for fear of how colleagues would react, how it might affect a probation period, or what their employer would think about sharing the cost.

Each of those is understandable. None of them changes the position of the person at the desk who is trying to read a screen they cannot see properly.

What a responsible employer can do in the meantime

An employer does not have to wait for a decision before finding out what the person needs. A workplace assessment carried out by a specialist can be commissioned privately. Unlike an assessment that centres mainly on equipment, it can look at the whole picture: the person’s role and environment, the barriers they meet, and practical adjustments such as screen arrangements, lighting, software settings or changes to how information is shared. The report gives the employer something concrete to act on and, if an Access to Work application is made, evidence of the person’s needs. The DWP research noted that people who struggled to evidence their needs found the application harder.

Some adjustments can be put in place almost immediately, such as adjusting settings, moving a desk or changing how meetings are run. Others, such as specialist equipment, take longer to source. Where that is the case, interim measures can reduce the strain while the full solution is arranged.

This is the work Visualise Training and Consultancy Ltd does. Its workplace assessments for people with sight loss and hearing loss are carried out by a small team of specialist assessors with professional and lived experience. The assessment looks at the role, the environment, the equipment and the wider adjustments, including the journey to work where it affects the job. For someone working from home, it can be done virtually. It can take place while the person is off sick, to prepare for their return, and urgent cases can usually be prioritised if they are flagged at referral. The report goes to the referrer, who shares it with the employee, and the employer then decides with the employee what is reasonable.

There is one practical point worth checking early. Employers should confirm with Access to Work how it treats items bought before an award is made, because that is for the scheme to answer and the position may affect what can be claimed back. The sensible order is to ask the question, not to leave the person unsupported while waiting for the answer.

Questions worth asking inside your organisation

For HR and occupational health teams, a few questions can turn a vague worry into a process. When someone discloses a sensory loss, who owns the next step? How quickly does a conversation about adjustments happen, and is it recorded? Is there a standing route to commission an assessment without waiting for budget sign-off in each case? And does anyone check back, so that a temporary fix does not quietly become permanent?

For health and safety professionals the point is sharper. If an employer knows a person is working with a barrier that affects how they use their screen, read instructions or move around the workplace, the risk is known. Managing a known risk is part of the job, whether or not a funding decision has arrived.

Fair to the individual, sensible for the employer

Supporting someone promptly is the right thing to do. It is also practical. A person who can see their screen or hear their colleagues clearly is more comfortable and more confident, and more likely to stay. As the research shows, the benefits are real once support is in place. Waiting months for them, when parts could have started sooner, is a cost to the person and, in the end, to the employer.

Now picture the same woman a few weeks on. Her manager sat down with her in the first week, asked what she was finding hardest and listened to the answer. The text on her screen is enlarged and the lighting has been changed. She no longer leans in until her neck aches. In a meeting she says, almost in passing, that she could read the papers this time, and her manager has to look away for a moment. When the Access to Work decision arrives, it builds on what is already working.

Access to Work is a great scheme, and it does its best work when employers have already begun. A queue is not a reason for a person to struggle unsupported in the workplace. The employer’s responsibility starts on the day the need is known.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Whether a particular adjustment is reasonable depends on the circumstances, including the size and nature of the organisation.

If you or someone in your team is visually impaired or has hearing loss and would like expert, tailored support to stay productive and comfortable at work, visit our workplace assessments page to arrange a workplace assessment.

Frequently asked questions

Does an employer have to wait for Access to Work before making adjustments?

No. The duty to make reasonable adjustments sits with the employer and does not pause while an application is decided. Access to Work funds support beyond those adjustments. Where support is delayed, the Health and Safety Executive notes that temporary arrangements may be needed to manage risk.

How long does an Access to Work decision take?

The National Audit Office reported an average processing time of 109 days in November 2025, up from 28 days in 2020 to 2021. Times will have changed since, so it is sensible to plan for a wait of weeks to months.

Can an employer commission a workplace assessment while an application is pending?

Yes. A specialist workplace assessment can be arranged privately at any point. It gives the employer practical recommendations to act on and can also provide evidence of the person’s needs if an Access to Work application is made.

Will an employer have to contribute to the cost of Access to Work support?

It may do. GOV.UK says that where an employee has been in post for more than six weeks, the employer may be asked to share the cost of equipment and adaptations, depending on the size of the employer. Current rules should be checked on GOV.UK before relying on any figure.

Related resources

Sources

Photo by Md Ishak Rahman on Unsplash.