As NHS Trusts prepare to implement new funding to provide specialist accessible toilets – aka Changing Places – one company is reminding them of the need to ensure the facility delivers on its promise.
The Department of Health & Social Care has announced £2m to fund at least 100 Changing Places assisted accessible toilets in NHS hospitals throughout England.
Closomat, Britain’s leading supplier & installer of such facilities, is also the only company that can offer complete project management of the installation. Uniquely, it is also the only company of its kind that is fully CDM (Construction Design & Management) compliant.
Warns Claire Haymes, Closomat CDM Compliance & Project Co-Ordinator,
“Disabled people make up more than a third of patients who access NHS services; they also access those services more than able people. Many of them need the extra space and equipment provided by a Changing Places, but not available in conventional wheelchair-accessible toilets. Yet only about 20 per cent of hospitals in England have Changing Places.
“The whole point of a Changing Places toilet is to enable someone who needs help to go to the toilet to do so with the appropriate space and equipment. We project manage such installations day in, day out. We understand all the considerations, not just in terms of Building Regulations, but useability: knowledge we share with clients to ensure their Changing Places delivers in every way. Inability to use the facility is almost worse than non provision.”
Adds Minister for Care Caroline Dinenage,
“People with disabilities and their carers rightly expect to find suitable facilities in hospitals of all places.”
Closomat has been involved with the Changing Places campaign almost from the outset, and was the original campaign sponsor. It has supplied and installed hundreds of Changing Places over the past decade, as both new build and refurbishments. Uniquely, it can not only supply and install, but, in-house, provide post-installation service & maintenance.
The company is now the ‘go to’ provider for away from home accessible toilet provision, including Changing Places. Its website www.closomat.co.uk is acknowledged as a key resource featuring design guidance, white papers, CAD blocks, NBS specification clauses and case studies.
The expertise within the company represents the combined wealth of knowledge amassed from almost 60 years’ helping disabled people optimise their dignity and independence in the bathroom, at home and away.