According to the Royal National Institute for the Blind, over 1 million people in the UK are registered blind or partially sighted. Some have had little or no sight since birth, others as the result of an accident, and other lose their sight as the result of a medical condition.
Visual Impairment does net necessarily mean complete blindness. Forty-nine per cent of blind and eighty per cent of partially sighted people can recognise a friend at arm's length. However, the condition means that some kind of reasonable adjustments are likely to need to be made in the workplace.
Increasingly, technological developments are removing some of the barriers that previously existed for partially sighted people.
The amount of vision that someone with partial sight has varies from person to person, and may either be static or likely to change in time.
There are a variety of reasonable adjustments that can be made for people with visual impairment, from providing large print-versions of documents, to more technological solutions such as screen readers and brail printers. The RNIB has good information about what is available. In a few cases physical adjustments to a building may be necessary. Most adjustments can be funded by the Access to Work scheme, administered by Job Centre Plus.
You may need to offer recruitment materials in braille or audio. Again, the RNIB has advice about the recruitment process for partially sighted people.
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