UK Pouchers (Equality Act)

Determining whether you qualify as a 'disabled person' under the Equality Act as rule does depend on your condition, it depends on the effects of that condition. Essentially what this means is that if, as a result of your condition, you are unable to perform day to day activities and this situation has lasted, or is likely to last, for more than 12 months then you will be classified as a disabled person. For some people a pouch does not prevent them doing anything, indeed it may well enable them to do things they were unable to do before. Unfortunately success in pouch surgery is not universal and for others it may be impossible to lead a normal life and these people will be covered by the EA.

It is also important not to confuse the rights to any benefits with the EA, these things are totally orthogonal. The EA is to ensure that any disability does not affect your chances of employment, access to certain places and so on, it is essentially to prevent discrimination. Access to benefits is based on need and is quite different.

In the UK, IA (www.iasupport.org) can offer much more UK focussed  advice on this sort of thing.

HTH

It depends what you mean by 'considered as a disability' and for what purpose. For the purposes of the Equality Act both Crohn's and Colitis are likely to be considered disabilies if severe enough. This is stated quite clearly in the government's own explanatory notes. People think the EA gives them all sorts of rights that others do not have, it does not. It simply ensures you are not treated differently because of your condition.

You're still talking about benefits, like I said entitlement to benefits and the EA are not related. The original poster asked about the EA, not benefits. The EA is not relevant to anything that the DWP advisors told you.