Old Vic toilets

I'm so sorry @BobbyBiscuits

@Keeptoiletssafe Thank you, that's very kind. The stuff you're doing sounds admirable. X

@BobbyBiscuits I am really sorry about your Dad.

I agree about disabled toilets - a lot of my historical info comes from disabled toilets because that’s the ones people more often came to harm as it wasn’t noticed. The pull chord alarm is only useful if it’s pulled and someone responds to it. Certainly for the man who was left overnight in our local supermarket, it was not pulled. And the children who were attacked in stations and a shopping centre.

I have asked government departments, the British Toilet Association and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents but no one keeps a database of incidents and toilet type. I do have limited information on sexual assaults and rapes in public toilets and it’s awful. The onus should be about prevention - making toilets as safe as possible for everyone.

It's true that it's quite common for people to collapse and die in public toilet cubicles.
It happened to my dad. I still feel awful for the poor person who found him. Obviously it was too late. Defibs weren't widely used outside of medical settings. From what I'm aware it was the fact the toilet had a gap which alerted them to someone collapsed inside. But it would've been worse if he was 'missing' for many hours and not discovered.
When people are sick the first place they go is the toilet.
Also you do get people sadly overdosing on drugs. Though they often choose the disabled one, meaning no-one can tell what's going on inside, often until it's too late.
So I do think gaps in the bottom of the door is a good idea. I would not want to enter a set of toilets containing urinals though. I can't get my head round men just getting their dicks out next to more than one complete stranger?!

Time to print some "fuck this shit" stickers

Ahh you lot I am all teary now. Thank you.

Regarding what I think will happen. I have written to Kemi Badenoch, Jess Phillips, Wes Streeting, Angela Raynor, Bridget Phillipson, Maria Caulfield and Lee Rowley (the latter two were in the last government). Kemi Badenoch was the only person to get back to me but it was a reply addressed to another person about animal testing.

I wrote to the relevant departments too. The BSR and HSE. It needs the Health and Safety Executive to get on board. The Equalities and Human Rights Commission seemed on board until I got to the bit about gender then they shut me down quickly. They gave me a form to fill in if I got harmed directly because of the new toilet design and had a protected characteristic.

The HSE say I have raised points that are well argued. Charities such as the Stroke Association, Heart Foundation and Epilepsy Action get it.

@Retiredfromthere I completely understand your constraints. I just know the answer is to reduce as many fully enclosed spaces as possible. Unfortunately, as I know from experience, the most important thing is to notice someone is in trouble in the first place because you have a limited time before the brain or body is irreversibly damaged. Both the woman and the child were silent. Being able to open the door outwards after the event is not so important in my opinion. It also has the side effect (also happens in real life) of someone stalking an woman and letting themselves in. Would you raise enough noise in that situation?

One person I spoke to who had a key role in Document T said thoughts were that there should be full height cubicles because she liked the privacy but an attendant always supervising every set of toilets!!! The people in charge don’t live in the real world of schools and public toilet situations. It’s frustrating as you hope officials should have practical knowledge and sense.

I have reports of lots of incidences where women and children have been pushed/forced into private cubicles and sexually assaulted too. I have lists of incidents in nightclubs, schools, hospitals, shopping centres, portaloos and train stations. I wrestle a bit with this as an issue as it’s relatively common and incredibly draining to read through.

The big problem is full height cubicles is it’s always seen as the solution when people complain about mixed sex facilities. It just makes everything much more dangerous for everyone.

What needs to happen is for every incident to be logged and the HSE to look at the problem nationally. No one is collecting robust data as far as I have been told.I think it’s a very quick win for the government to reduce the number of private spaces in public areas which are accessible by chance or design by both sexes.

This is a good video explaining why time is of the essence in an emergency. Going back to the theatre toilets, I did wonder if I should have a ‘sit-in’ to see how long it would take before I was ‘found’! Then contrast it by lying on the floor of a cubicle in another theatre which has a floor to door gap and noting the rescue time there?!

@Keeptoiletssafe Sometimes - we are such a premises - its not possible to have single sex toilets. The building is old and there is not space - or traffic. We are moving to cubicles which are self contained and with outward opening or sliding doors. These will be off a small open ended lobby which is off the main corridor. Quiet so if you shouted in distress you could be heard.

I understand that the ideal is for single sex toilets but because of the location we do have floor to ceiling doors (otherwise there would be a privacy concern in normal use). I have taken on board the door design when doing the current refurb. I have also taken on board the privacy issues for women and girls and this is why the two cubicles are self contained. (There is a mixed sex staff toilet facility which is also self contained and now the door opens outwards).

In terms of being able to get to someone inside a toilet having a door that does not open INTO the cubicle, and which could be blocked by someone collapsed, seems to be the most important thing. This should be something that could be implemented for pretty much any premises.

TBH if there is only one or two toilet cubicles in a place then its much easier to discover that one is occupied for a longer than expected time.

I would also like to reiterate the thanks above to @Keeptoiletssafe. What an informative post. I just wish I could remember this when next discussing the implications of these new unisex designs.

@Keeptoiletssafe what do you think it will take for people to wake up to the probelms with the new design? Do you think it will take legal action? Thank you for all the work you do highlighting this issue.

I was vaguely aware of that before but your comprehensive reply is very helpful.

Looking at the new women's toilets at Victoria Station (fully enclosed, ridiculously grand, cubicles, very well used) it's also easier to keep cubicles with gaps clean.

@Keeptoiletssafe thank you for such a thorough and informative reply. I will think about public loos differently in future.

Yes. I saved a stranger’s life once because I saw they had collapsed through the gap between the floor and the door and rescued them. It didn’t even really affect me as such until years later when another incident happened. I was in a situation where I didn’t realise there was a child a few feet from me behind the full floor to ceiling door. I didn’t help them because I couldn’t see they had collapsed. I do know, from the medical information afterwards, I could have prevented what happened to the child. This haunts me and I don’t want anyone else to go through this. And most of all I want to stop people being harmed through bad design.

So I thought I would try and do something positive and started looking into why toilet door gaps were being lost in recent toilet designs. I have gone through lots of government documents. I have emailed and spoken to many officials in different departments trying to find reasons why but no one could help other than ‘privacy’. One person involved told me that I should get a freedom of information request but then wouldn’t tell me why or exactly what on (?).

The Department of Education has safety and safeguarding as a priority throughout statutory documents and guidelines until it comes to a toilet cubicle building guidelines section which changed around 2021. No mention of safety for the secondary schools toilets section but now mentions privacy several times. This has been confirmed to me by the DfE who state it is schools and governors responsibility if a child comes to harm behind a full height toilet door, as they should know their cohort and therefore override the DfE designs document. In an average secondary school there will be around a dozen children who are at risk with known medical conditions. It can never be guaranteed that the present and future cohort are never going to collapse. Thats why we have defibrillators in schools. The child in my case had no known condition beforehand.

There is a real issue with mix sex toilet cubicles and I have had correspondence with several organisations who don’t realise the implications of what the last government did when Document T came into force last year - a design document for public toilets and offices (not schools). All mixed sex toilets designs are fully enclosed and these designs can be used for single sex toilets as well. There is no impact assessment on making toilet cubicles completely private. The government commissioned a private company to look into designs for Document T to help people with long term health conditions. It was a long document which I have analysed. There was no research or evidence to enclose toilet cubicles for people with long term health conditions. The reference they gave for their justification to enclose toilets was from an American journal article for gender neutral public restrooms in which the ‘relevant’ quote is ‘A better solution, supported by many transactivists, and increasingly found in trendy nightclubs and restaurants, is to eliminate gender-segregated facilities entirely and treat the public restroom as one single open space with fully enclosed stalls.’ There was also a Minnesota high school restroom referenced (which led back to the other article). Both of these references were irrelevant to the remit but have now impacted policy for U.K. toilets.

Ministers don’t understand the implications of closing the gaps in toilet cubicle designs. Kemi Badenoch was using single sex toilet regulations as an election winner. She said that women were voting for her based on the fact the single sex designs are safer. There are no designs in Document T that stipulate door gaps. The private cubicles, which are designed so someone can let themselves into from the outside without prior warning to the occupant, are not safer. These public toilet designs have been called rape cubicles by others for obvious reasons. Annoyingly, it’s now been confirmed to me in writing that one of the single sex cubicle designs in Document T can have door gaps - they just don’t specify them or mention them in the official document and the diagrams imply that they are full height. So full height is what manufacturers are likely to produce.

The more research I do and the more government departments I speak to shows that no one has thought this through or done due diligence for when people are at their most vulnerable. The news show more and more people are being affected by these designs being unsafe compared to the traditional toilet cubicle. It is adversely affecting the medically vulnerable, women and children the most. I now get people contacting me telling me their stories too so I write about those and my experience as a teacher. I believe the designs are breaking equality laws and laws to keep children safe in education.

It would be a very simple thing to correct on Document T and secondary school designs, by stipulating all single sex cubicles should have, at least, a specified safety gap height from floor to door. The benefit would be huge to the people that were saved, their friends and families.

Gaps under and over toilet cubicle doors have been a universal safety and cleaning (health) design feature across the world for decades. Because they work.

@Keeptoiletssafe can I ask why you have such a peculiar interest in toilets?

Paramedics say that the bathroom is the room they are likely to find someone. People are often found there because 1) it’s the room you go to if you feel ill 2) the elimination process puts an additional physiological strain on the body.

The fact that inwards opening full height doors have to have a safety mechanism to also open outwards is due to the fact it is well known bodies ‘get in the way’ of opening a door. That should give you an idea on how often this happens.

The fact that there are defibrillators in public places is because people collapse and some can be saved if they are worked on quickly.

Michael Mosley saved a woman who collapsed in a BBC corridor she collapsed near him and he started cpr on her quickly. She survived and went on to have children. Tragically he was on his own when he collapsed.

Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) was saved by a lady in the next toilet cubicle realising something was very wrong with her and so she got medical attention quick enough for a brain injury to be operated on.

I could name lots of other names of people who collapsed in toilet cubicles, including children, but they are not famous.

When you at home alone you are more vulnerable. The same as when you in a private cubicle when no one can see you, you are more vulnerable. That goes for assaults, self-harm and building evacuations too.

How unlikely do people have medical emergencies? A person has a stroke in this country every five minutes. Same for a heart attack. There are many thousands who have diabetic hypos and 1 in 100 has epilepsy which means they are more of risk of having a dangerous seizure. All of these emergencies will usually start with someone feeling ill. And if you are shopping, in the office, at the cinema, theatre etc where would you head? In nightclubs/pubs women are being spiked then followed.

Some practical advice: If you think you are having a heart attack or other medical emergency on your own at home, and you have the ability to call 999, I know the operators will tell you to unlock your front door and open it so you don’t collapse against it, and keep a phone by you and stay there.

The Kings Head Theatre in Islington has put a sign saying "everyone, cubicles" on what were the women's toilets.

I'm so tired of this.

Done 👍🏼

Yes, many people die alone at home from heart attacks. What’s your point?

I could have a heart attack alone at home but my front door still goes from floor to ceiling! Unlikely emergencies don't necessarily trump privacy.

Not to mention men of ill-intent putting in hidden cameras!

I filled it in too.

done

Also I'm never sure exactly what women do when they go to the toilets together, but I presume it includes chatting, gossiping and touching up their make-up in the mirrors etc.

Not at the theatre. Quick comb of hair maybe, but too crowded and full of women queueing for conversation or makeup. It just takes women longer because we always have to partially undress, plus it takes time to deal with sanpro.

So women need more cubicles than the total of cubicles plus urinals that men need.

The older I get the less I want to go to places where I have to share toilet facilities with men. In the old days it didn't matter, I had a cast-iron pelvic floor and rarely needed to use a toilet urgently.

The Old Vic should be providing separate handwashing facilities in each cubicle. Otherwise I think their setup is illegal (as well as unpleasant and unsafe)

I don't know if this would work, but as a man with a very terfy wife I've suggested to her that if ever faced with this sort of toilet provision at a theatre/cinema/bar, the thing to do would be to organise with a large group of women to "invade" en masse the facility with urinals and queue up to use the single (or however many) cubicle.

Also I'm never sure exactly what women do when they go to the toilets together, but I presume it includes chatting, gossiping and touching up their make-up in the mirrors etc.

If enough women did this enough times I suspect the men would start complaining vociferously... and the venue might listen...

(Obviously if it could be contrived in some way to have all the cubicles in the cubicled facility continuously occupied it would strengthen this protest. Although, having said that, if all the facilities are unisex then women don't need any excuse to use the urinaled facility as they have every right to be in there anyway...)

I've stopped going anywhere that has unisex loos. The stench is usually so bad, it detracts from the enjoyment of the visit. I always give feedback that I won't be spending any more with them until they reinstate ladies-only loos.

I was really impressed by the lowry theatre the other week. They have maintained the ladies loo and now have a mens/ gender neutral loo.