The assessment process

Step One

On receipt of the letter from your Funding Body (e.g. Student Finance England) confirming eligibility for DSA, contact the Access Centre to arrange a Study Needs Assessment. You need to send a copy of your medical evidence/Educational Psychologists report and the funding body letter to the Access Centre within 5 working days of making the appointment, otherwise the appointment may have to be cancelled.

Step Two

Atttend your Study Needs Assessment. This will consist of a discussion with a specialist assessor who will explore areas of support and make recommendation for appropriate funding through the DSA.

Please note: the recommendations made for you are specific to you as a result of additional costs you are likely to incur as a disabled student. Therefore support you might need without being a student (e.g. personal care support) will need to be funded separately. In the same way, costs that all students expect to incur - e.g. purchase of core textbooks - cannot be funded through the DSA. After the recommendations have been made, your assessor will write a report and we will send it to you.

Step Three

You will be asked to read the report we produce, before it is sent to the Funding Body. It is your application, and you need to be happy with it before it is sent to your Funding Body.

Step Four

Your report is sent to the Funding Body. The Funding Body decides which of our recommendations they can pay for with the DSA fund. They should write to you to inform you of the outcome of the assessment. If you have not heard from your funding body within two weeks of giving us your permission to send the report, you might wish to contact the funding body or your disability support team.

Step Five

Once you have confirmation that the Funding Body will fund the recommended support etc. you should provide the supplier of the support with a copy of the letter (e.g. AccessAbility or equipment supplier). The supplier must have confirmation that the Funding Body will pay for the services and equipment supplied.  The funding body will often purchase the equipment directly and ask them to deliver it to you.