Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, whether he has plans to classify fibromyalgia as a disability.

We believe that listing specific conditions would not help people with hard to diagnose illnesses (as is currently often the case with fibromyalgia), as doing so would make protection dependent upon a successful diagnosis rather than the immediate impact of the illness on a person’s life.

The Equality Act 2010 is the principal means through which disabled people are protected from discrimination in Great Britain but does not, except in a few specific instances, specify conditions that may fall within the definition of disability. This is because in most cases, it is the impact on the person’s life that is the qualifying criteria rather than the condition itself.

The definition set out in the Act means that any person with a physical or mental impairment that falls within this definition will already be protected as having a disability, which may apply to many of those with fibromyalgia.