Why do we need Changing Places toilets?

Thousands of people with profound and multiple learning disabilities cannot use standard accessible toilets. They need support from one or two carers to use the toilet, or a height adjustable changing bench where a carer can safely change their continence pad. They also need a hoisting system so they can be helped to transfer safely from their wheelchair to the toilet or changing bench.

Standard accessible toilets do not provide changing benches or hoists. Most are too small to accommodate more than one person. Without Changing Places toilets, the person with disabilities is put at risk, and families are forced to risk their own health and safety by changing their daughter or son on a toilet floor. This is dangerous, unhygienic and undignified.

Imagine how it would feel to have to lie on a cold, and dirty toilet floor… Imagine how a parent would feel if they slipped and injured their son or daughter by dropping them…

> Watch our video clip of Jenny and her son Craig

But the alternative is not to go out at all.

"It is such a struggle to go out. A standard accessible toilet is no use to us – it does not provide any of the facilities we need. When we do go out in the community we have to return home within 1-2 hours so Kunal can be changed. If the family ever needs to go out for more than a few hours Kunal has to stay at home with a carer, which he hates. No-one likes to sit at home staring at four walls."

It is now accepted and expected that everyone has a right to live in the community, to move around within it and access all its facilities. Government policy promotes the idea of ‘community participation’ and ‘active citizenship’, but for some people with disabilities the lack of a fully accessible toilet is denying them this right.

Paid carers are not allowed to lift people who cannot transfer themselves – they need to use a changing bench and a hoist. The lack of Changing Places toilets means that people are simply unable to take part in activities enjoyed by others at their day centre, school or college or in the community.

There are almost no public Changing Places toilets in the UK. Providing these toilets in public places would make a dramatic difference to the lives of thousands of people who desperately need these facilities.

"If more Changing Places toilets were installed it would make such a difference to our lives. It would mean that we could do the normal everyday activities that other people take for granted."