Work and epilepsy - employers

In the UK, 1 in 100 people have epilepsy.

If you have staff members or candidates with epilepsy, it’s important to know how to help them stay safe at work. The first step to doing this is to learn more about the condition.

Here is our guide to help you in supporting your staff with epilepsy.

If you have epilepsy and have questions about employment, visit our page for employees.

Learn about epilepsy basics

Before you can support a member of staff, you need to know some important basic information about epilepsy. We have a few webpages with everything you need to get started.
Epilepsy is a common condition which affects the brain, causing people to have seizures. For most people, epilepsy is a life-long condition. Take a look at our page What is epilepsy? to understand the basics and find out how it can affect people

Many people only think of tonic-clonic seizures or think that flashing lights are always a problem. But this isn’t the case. There are lots of different seizure types and more common seizure triggers. Read our information on these to make sure you recognise them:

• Seizure types
• Seizure triggers

It’s important to know the correct terminology to use when discussing someone’s epilepsy. You can learn more about that on our page epilepsy facts and terminology.

Why employ people with epilepsy?

Epilepsy is considered a disability under the equality laws. Not employing someone because of their epilepsy could be discrimination. This applies to every point in the employment process, from the application stage, right the way through employment.

Research from the Harvard Business Review found that employing people with disabilities can be advantageous in the following ways:

1. People with disabilities often have unique talents that make people better at particular jobs
2. The presence of employees with disabilities elevates the culture of the entire organisation, making it more collaborative and boosting productivity
3. Helps to create a reputation for inclusiveness
4. Companies are recognised as socially responsible

Find out about your employee’s epilepsy

By finding out about your employee’s epilepsy and what support they need, you can help them to stay in work and keep their knowledge and skills.

Not everyone who has epilepsy will have seizures during the working day. Some people might only have seizures when they’re asleep. Others might have them when they first wake up before they need to be at work. And some people will be seizure-free. Around 7 out of 10 people have their seizures controlled by medicines.

Once you know an employee has epilepsy, you’ll need to talk to them about how their epilepsy affects them. You might ask:

• Are you still having seizures?
• How often do they happen?
• What type of seizures do you have?
• Do you get a warning a seizure is going to happen?
• What happens during a seizure?
• How long do they last?
• How do you feel afterwards?
• Do you usually need any help or first aid?

The answers to these questions will help you both to decide what support is needed. It’s important to make these decisions together with the person. They may not need any support. You can use our ‘My epilepsy’ form to help with this process.

What kind of support do people need?

Once you know what type of seizures your staff member has, it’s good to get to know what to do if they have a seizure at work.

We recommend that you put seizure action plans and specific risk assessments in place. Our training covers this in detail and includes templates for you to use.

We have information on first aid to help. You can order free First Aid posters for your workplace if your staff member has tonic-clonic seizures. We also have a video resource of first aid for tonic clonic seizures.

Our epilepsy training goes into much more detail, including information on topics like:

• Sickness absence and medical appointments
• Negative perceptions and stigma
• What the law says
• Concerns about safety
• Reasonable adjustments
• Access to Work
• Disability Confident scheme
• All our training courses are backed by our Mark of Quality

Practical ways to support employees with epilepsy

Reasonable adjustments

Employers have a legal duty to make reasonable adjustments for employees with epilepsy under the equality laws. Many reasonable adjustments involve little or no cost. If there are costs involved, funding might be available from Access to Work.

Sometimes small changes that don’t cost much can make a big difference for someone with epilepsy. Our training courses cover this in detail.  You will learn more about reasonable adjustments and how to put them in place.  You will also find out about the support available to you and your employee.

People with epilepsy may be more likely to need reasonable adjustments in relation to these topics:

Helping with memory problems

Memory problems are common for people with epilepsy. But there are things you can do to help. Strategies for coping with memory problems are individual, so talk to your employee about what helps them. Some ideas are listed below:

• Create a work environment where employees can focus and avoid distractions
• Allow extra time for learning new tasks
• Give information or instructions in different ways: verbally and in writing
•  Highlight important information with colour
• Repeat instructions and demonstrate tasks several times if needed
• Encourage the use of checklists, notes, and voice recorders
• Provide software for employees to create reminders for tasks and appointments. These could be email and calendar applications
• Check their understanding. You can encourage them to repeat back information to you

Avoiding seizure triggers

Some things make seizures more likely for some people with epilepsy. These are called ‘triggers’.

Triggers don’t cause epilepsy. But if someone already has epilepsy, they make seizures more likely.

Possible triggers include:

• Tiredness
• Stress
• Flashing or flickering lights. This only affects about 3 to 5 in 100 people with epilepsy
• Periods (menstrual cycle). This is called catamenial epilepsy
• Not taking epilepsy medicines as prescribed

Find out if your employee has any seizure triggers. If there are triggers, discuss how they can be avoided or minimised. Make a plan for how you can work together to help avoid any triggers at work.

For example, if your staff member has seizures which are triggered by tiredness or lack of sleep, you could look at their working pattern to see if their working hours could be adjusted. You could discuss changing their start or finish times, or by agree to reduce their working hours.

Photosensitive epilepsy

Although flashing lights are often associated with epilepsy, only 3 to 5 in 100 people with epilepsy have seizures triggered by flashing lights.

Seizures triggered by flashing lights are known as photosensitive epilepsy. Computer screens are unlikely to be a seizure trigger. However, they could be if there are flashing or flickering images, or some types of pattern on the screen.

Complex patterns can be enough to trigger a seizure for some people with photosensitive epilepsy, especially if the pattern is high contrast. If your staff member has photosensitive epilepsy, you can learn more on our page ‘photosensitive epilepsy’.

Managing stress

Some people with epilepsy find that they are more likely to have seizures during times of stress. This can be particularly likely if the stress happens over a long period of time.

If work-related stress is a trigger for your employee, work with them to identify the issues. Agree realistic and workable ways to tackle them.

You could also encourage them to enrol on our self-management course, Epilepsy and your Wellbeing. It contains helpful strategies for managing stress.

Side effects of epilepsy treatments

There are many different treatments for epilepsy. Treatments come with a possibility of different side effects. The most common treatment is epilepsy medicines.

Side effects of medicines can vary, but can include:

• Drowsiness
• Dizziness
• Weight loss or gain
• Memory problems
• Sleep problems
• Personality changes
• Rashes
• Hair loss or growth
• Headaches

It is important to note that not everyone taking epilepsy medicines will have side effects. Those who do may find they are mild.

Other treatments can include:

• Surgery
• VNS (Vagus nerve stimulation) therapy
• Ketogenic diet

What does our training cover?

We have a range of training options to help businesses, charities, and other organisations support people with epilepsy in professional environments.

Our online sessions connect you to one of our specialist team members in real time, delivering training to your needs. Our specialist courses come with an Epilepsy Action Mark of Quality. This shows you have undergone our training.

You will have the opportunity to ask questions specific to your business and help you better support people with epilepsy at work.

The training comes in three levels and you can learn more on our training webpage.

Our 1-hour briefing covers:

• What epilepsy is and how it happens
•  Statistics about epilepsy
• Different seizure types
• Seizure First Aid
• Where to find further resources
• Question + Answer (Q+A)

Our Epilepsy for Managers session covers:

• Everything from the 1-hour briefing
• Laws  related to epilepsy
• Information about seizure triggers
• The impact of epilepsy on wellbeing
• Risk assessments
• Seizure action plans
• Personal emergency evacuation plans

Our HR / Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Masterclass covers:

• Everything from the Managers session
• Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (HASAWA)
• Equality Act 2010
• Recruitment of people with epilepsy
• Disability Confident Scheme
• Sickness absence
• Effects on memory
• Group-based learning sets
• All attendees will be provided with templates of all forms outlined in the training

If you want to book some training, but aren’t sure what level of knowledge you need, you can contact our Learning and Training Lead who will be happy to discuss the options with you. We can also create a bespoke training package to suit your needs.