An adviser will consider how your condition may affect study-related tasks and assess whether adjustments are needed to course delivery or assessment methods, including exams. If required, an adviser will create a teaching, learning and exam adjustment report, initially based on the information you provide to our service in our questionnaire and any supporting evidence.

Once you’ve reviewed your report and granted consent it will be made available to your tutors via Pegasus. You can contact our service at any time to request changes or remove your consent. 

The university provides a range of assistive technology to support all students in accessing learning, including tools that can be used on personal devices.

If you need specific software or equipment — such as an individual licence for assistive software — an adviser can help you identify suitable options and explore how to access them. In some cases, this may require submitting evidence to support an application for funding or to enable a purchase

The Disability Service can arrange for one-to-one support when appropriate. The nature of this support will depend on your individual needs. This could be communication support, notetaking, study support, mentoring, or a personal assistant.

The Disabled Students' Allowance (DSA) is a source of funding. It can meet the costs for support and/or equipment that are essential for you to access your course. 

If you're a new student and are applying through UCAS, we recommend you disclose your disability on your application form. If you disclose at this stage, the Disability Service will contact you to discuss your needs. If you don't wish to disclose your disability you can, at any time, self-refer. This will allow you to access support from our service.

Self-referral

Please contact the Disability & Wellbeing Service via email: disability-wellbeing@strath.ac.uk or telephone: +44 (0)141 548 3402. It's helpful to provide the following information:

• your full name
• applicant number (if known)
• date of birth
• course
• email address
• telephone number
• home address postcode

Students can request support at any time throughout their studies.

If you're receiving support from the Disability & Wellbeing Service, contact us via telephone. Or email to request an appointment. We operate on a waiting list basis and our appointments are often booked in advance. Please provide your availability when requesting an appointment via e-mail.

For students who disclosed a disability at the application stage, we'll contact you before your course starts and invite you to complete our referral questionnaire. 

If you have not used our services, and think that you require our support, we'd ask you to complete our referral questionnaire. You can request to start a disability referral via Pegasus.

In reviewing your questionnaire response, our advisers can start the process of identifying the most appropriate support requirements. It will also allow us to engage with you. 

Please provide supporting written evidence if:

• you require adjustments to how your course is assessed
• you need access to equipment or services that carry an additional cost

We gather evidence from a range of sources to help us determine what support you may need. 

What Counts as Evidence?

Evidence must come from an appropriately qualified professional and may include:

• a letter from a GP or consultant
• a Certificate of Vision Impairment or a letter from an audiologist
• a diagnostic report or signed letter from an educational psychologist (for specific learning difficulties)

We also gather information from your questionnaire responses and, where appropriate, through in-person discussions. Previous support information may be considered as secondary evidence.

We may contact you for further documentation to support your adjustments.

If required, an adviser will create a teaching, learning and exam adjustment report. You will be emailed to review and consent to share the report with your department. You can contact us at any time to request changes to your adjustments.

Appointments are offered based on individual circumstances. If we need to discuss your situation further, we’ll add you to our waiting list and notify you by email. Waiting times may be longer during peak periods. When appointments become available, you’ll receive an email invitation to book a slot.
If an appointment isn’t needed at this time, you won’t be added to the waiting list. However, you’re always welcome to contact us if you’d like to review your support later.

Appointments are managed via waiting lists on a first-come, first-served basis. We may prioritise students with complex or urgent needs that cannot be met through general campus-based provision. During busy periods, waiting times may be longer.

We offer a range of appointment types to meet different needs, support as many students as possible, and reduce waiting times.

• short appointments: are available for specific enquiries that can be resolved quickly.
• longer appointments: such as needs assessments, are offered when it’s necessary to explore how your condition or impairment may affect your studies or access to University services.

It's very important for us to know whether you are happy with the Needs Assessment process and conclusions.

The purpose of the needs assessment is to explore, with your help, any impact that your condition or impairment may have on your studies or your ability to access the University and its services. Where appropriate, and again with your help, we will identify suitable support and facilities which will enable you to fully access your course. The University of Strathclyde is a validated assessment centre, and you can get further information about the standards expected of needs assessments at The Scottish Government Website.

Our aim is to support disabled students as best we can to get equal access to their course of study. An assessment of needs entails a judgment about how a disability is likely to impact on study, and disabled students needs or course requirements may change over time. If the outcome of an original assessment seems no longer sufficient to enable you to access your course you should contact the Disability & Wellbeing Service and request a review.

If there was some aspect of the assessment process that you found unsatisfactory, and you wish to complain, then you should in the first instance make your complaint, in writing, to the Disability & Wellbeing Manager, Chris McKenzie (chris.g.mckenzie@strath.ac.uk). Hopefully that would not be necessary and any difficulties will be resolved by talking to the assessors. Possible grounds for complaint, however, could include:

• lack of prior information about the assessment process
• the range of evidence was not taken into account at the assessment
• recommendations or conclusions did not appear to follow from the recognised impact of the student's disability on their study
• lack of clarity or factual errors in the assessment report

The Disability & Wellbeing Manager will respond to your complaint as soon as possible. This may involve an invitation to the student to attend a meeting. It is then open to the Disability & Wellbeing Manager to ask the assessors to review their needs assessment, which may include reviewing the outcome.

If you feel that your complaint is still not satisfactorily resolved, then you may take your complaint to the Head of Disability & Wellbeing, who has responsibility for the Disability Team.