Diagnosis later in life and work

I was diagnosed a year after taking early retirement, I worked at a university in a scientific, not teaching, role. Personally, I would have informed my employer and sought accommodations had I still been working. I would advise you to look up your employers written policies on supporting disabled staff. This will give you some idea of what you can reasonably expect and enable you to point out if they do not live up to their policies in practice. I hope that you are a trade union member, as they can be very useful in providing support and advocacy. Any information you give your managers, occupational health, HR etc. should be treated confidentially and you should be the only person who decides who is informed of your diagnosis.

All employers are legally obliged to provide 'reasonable accommodations' for disabled staff. The accommodations are designed to ensure that disabled staff are on an even playing field with their non-disabled colleagues in their working lives. For example, for an autistic teacher, if the scraping of metal chairs when children are moving about was a profound sensory problem, then providing the chairs in the classroom with rubber or felt pads, would count as a reasonable accommodation.

I was diagnosed a year after taking early retirement, I worked at a university in a scientific, not teaching, role. Personally, I would have informed my employer and sought accommodations had I still been working. I would advise you to look up your employers written policies on supporting disabled staff. This will give you some idea of what you can reasonably expect and enable you to point out if they do not live up to their policies in practice. I hope that you are a trade union member, as they can be very useful in providing support and advocacy. Any information you give your managers, occupational health, HR etc. should be treated confidentially and you should be the only person who decides who is informed of your diagnosis.

All employers are legally obliged to provide 'reasonable accommodations' for disabled staff. The accommodations are designed to ensure that disabled staff are on an even playing field with their non-disabled colleagues in their working lives. For example, for an autistic teacher, if the scraping of metal chairs when children are moving about was a profound sensory problem, then providing the chairs in the classroom with rubber or felt pads, would count as a reasonable accommodation.

Thank you for the reply. I am in a union and have made my rep aware. The problem is it's hard to ask for anything after managing for so long. I don't think of myself as 'disabled' but trying to think of what adjustments could help.