PHSO lost on 3 separate discrimination grounds. Here's why.

One employer lost on three separate discrimination grounds, over one dyslexic hire. All three came from the same six-month probation period. A tribunal found the employer knew about her dyslexia from day one, and failed her on every front anyway (Rashid v Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, case 2424622/2017; analysis published by Thrive Law, 21 July 2026).

Humma Rashid joined the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman as a project officer. She disclosed her dyslexia before she started. Occupational Health told her manager to discuss extra reading and writing time, but that advice never reached him.

For months she was told she was doing fine. Then a moderation meeting changed her grade to "improvement needed." No minutes were kept, and a spreadsheet later went missing.

She lost her chance at a permanent role, and resigned.

This case matters for anyone newly disclosing dyslexia in a new job, not just civil servants. The pattern, disclosure made, advice given, then lost somewhere between departments, repeats across sectors and employer sizes.

How reassurance becomes evidence against an employer

Ms Rashid was repeatedly reassured her writing issues were known and accepted. She was marked "satisfactory" at her mid-probation review. Staff had already been told that grade meant a permanent role from 1 September.

Behind the scenes, the picture was different. At an unminuted moderation meeting, her grade was quietly changed to "improvement needed." She was told there would be no permanent job, with no warning that her formal grading had shifted.

The tribunal treated this gap, between what she was told and what was actually recorded, as clear evidence of unfair treatment (Thrive Law, 21 July 2026). An employer cannot reassure someone their dyslexia-linked struggles are fine, then secretly grade them down for the same struggles.

If you're told "we know it's an issue and you're doing fine," get it in writing. Do this especially near a probation or appraisal date.

Why one incident produced three separate claims

The tribunal upheld three different Equality Act 2010 claims from the same set of facts. Direct discrimination under Section 13 covered the unfair downgrade itself. Discrimination arising from disability under Section 15 covered being penalized for writing weaknesses caused by her dyslexia.

Section 15 covers unfavorable treatment connected to the disability, such as slower writing or extra proofing time, where the employer already knew about it. Intent doesn't come into it.

Failure to make reasonable adjustments under Section 20 covered the extra time and support she never received. Each section protects against a different kind of harm. A single set of facts can breach all three at once.

You don't need to name the exact legal section yourself to raise a concern. Describing the pattern, reassured verbally while marked down formally, adjustments requested but never arriving, is enough for ACAS or a solicitor to map onto the right ground.

This matters because many employees only think to raise one of these grounds. Knowing all three exist means naming the right one, or several, when something goes wrong.

If your appraisal, your workload, and your missing adjustments all trace back to the same disclosed dyslexia, you may have more than one live claim. Don't assume it's only one.

The paperwork failure that made the case indefensible

The Occupational Health advice existed. It was written down, and it reached HR's files. It simply never reached the one manager who needed to act on it.

The tribunal was not sympathetic to that excuse. A disclosure only helps if it reaches the people making decisions about you, and that responsibility sits with the employer, not the employee (Thrive Law, 21 July 2026).

Missing minutes from the moderation meeting made the downgrade hard to defend. So did a spreadsheet that later disappeared. Gaps in an employer's own paperwork tend to get read against the employer.

Tribunals often draw a negative inference when key records vanish at a convenient moment. A missing spreadsheet that once held someone's original marks looks very different from an employer who simply changed its mind later.

Don't assume HR passing something to occupational health, or vice versa, means your actual manager has seen it. Confirm it in writing yourself, and name the manager directly.

This communication gap is not a one-off

This failure fits a wider pattern. A DWP-commissioned review of how people experience Access to Work found that applicants and employers routinely get little guidance on how the process actually works (NatCen Social Research for DWP, "Journeys to Access to Work," published 25 June 2026, updated 15 July 2026).

Many only piece together how reasonable adjustments interact with Access to Work part-way through their own case, the review found. That's the same disconnect that cost PHSO three tribunal findings: information existed somewhere in the system, but it never reached the person who needed to act on it.

If your workplace involves occupational health, HR, and a separate Access to Work claim, treat each one as a silo until you've personally confirmed the connection. Don't assume information flows automatically between them.

The system is not designed to relay your disclosure for you. Confirming it yourself, in writing, is the only reliable route.

The same duty exists in the US, and the EEOC is still enforcing it

US readers have a parallel obligation under the ADA: the interactive process. An employer who refuses to engage with a disabled employee's accommodation request breaches that duty. Exploring options together isn't optional.

The EEOC settled a case on exactly this failure in April 2026. FedEx paid $280,000 after refusing several disabled dispatchers' telework requests without exploring alternatives, effectively forcing at least one into retirement (EEOC press release, 17 April 2026).

The mechanism differs slightly between the two cases. FedEx flatly refused to engage, while PHSO's failure was a communication breakdown inside its own systems. Both were treated as a breach of the same underlying duty: take a disability-linked request seriously, and act on it.

Whether you're in the UK or the US, a communication failure inside the business becomes the employer's own liability.

What this means for you this week

If you've disclosed dyslexia and asked for adjustments, don't assume the request reached the person who decides your grading. Email your manager directly, and copy whoever holds your file.

Keep a written record of any reassurance you're given about your performance, especially near a probation review or appraisal. The email tone checker can help you word that request so it reads as a professional confirmation, not an accusation.

The reasonable adjustments builder turns your specific barriers into a written request. Address it to the actual decision-maker, not a shared inbox. If you're still deciding how much to disclose, and when, the disclosure decision guide can help.

It walks through the offer-stage and early-tenure options. Ms Rashid's case took seven months to reach any adjustment at all. It arrived a week before her contract ended.

If your own request has gone quiet for more than a few weeks, that pattern is worth documenting now, not after a bad appraisal (see our related piece on who pays while Access to Work decides).

Three things are worth doing this week, whichever stage you're at:

• Email your manager directly confirming any adjustment already agreed, and ask them to reply confirming they've seen it.
• Copy HR or whoever holds your personnel file, so the confirmation exists in two places, not one.
• Note the date next to any verbal reassurance about your performance, in case it's ever inconsistent with a written grade later.

None of this needs to wait for a tribunal to prove the point. Most of what went wrong for Ms Rashid was preventable with two written emails and a single follow-up asking for confirmation.

A single email today, copying the actual decision-maker, is cheaper than three tribunal findings later.