Do you think not having a staff toilet is acceptable?

[Onanotherdiet38]

If working with a small group of children, just having one toilet for 3 staff and 4 young children, no access to another one. This is my current role, every other school has had separate staff toilets.

Or in a previous role, working with service users with learning difficulties and again only one toilet for everybody, service users that don't ever flush the chain (not saying it is their fault), with a broken lock on the door so service users could walk in on you at any minute.

I think both situations are not acceptable and that staff should be provided with their own toilets, am I just expecting too much though?

I don't even mean one set of toilets, I mean literally one single toilet

You have to have separate toilets legally unless the toilet is a single lockable disabled toilet (which is a bit of a legal loophole)

Access to any toilet is good enough. I don't think who it is shared with is that important.

The lock situation you should have pushed repeatedly and loudly to get it fixed ASAP.

Oh wow, I didn't know it was required by law.. nope, not a disabled toilet

The lock did eventually get fixed luckily.

I did some work in a nursery where the staff toilet had half a toilet seat, that was... uncomfortable.

I thought they had to be separate more for safeguarding reasons?

@LampLighter414

Access to any toilet is good enough. I don't think who it is shared with is that important.

The lock situation you should have pushed repeatedly and loudly to get it fixed ASAP.

Not in a school it isnt - there are legal requirements

I agree it should be. I mean it's literally one tiny toilet and a sink. A lot of children don't flush the chain either.. we always tell them to but sometimes it gets missed.

@WeDontTalkAboutBrunoNoNoNo

I thought they had to be separate more for safeguarding reasons?

They do- unless as `I said above it is a disabled toilet when it is a grey area

@Onanotherdiet38

The lock did eventually get fixed luckily.

I did some work in a nursery where the staff toilet had half a toilet seat, that was... uncomfortable.

Why did you sit down?

I'm not expecting a fancy posh set of toilets or anything but young children aren't always the best at hygiene habits and it's not nice having to go and flush somebody else's faeces down the toilet before you use it ..

Current buildings standards for between 6 and 25 people (mixed use) is 2 toilets and 2 handbasins. However that's for new builds. For current spaces it's what is reasonably practical. This means you must provide such facilities unless it is clearly unreasonable in terms of time, trouble, cost and physical difficulty. One of our buildings has 3 toilets and can be 30 people using them. As it is current and would be very costly to alter and install additional this is classed as acceptable.

Yes of course they should. It's a requirement in education situations for safeguarding. And you need X cubicles per Y number of kids enrolled.
Besides if you only have one single lavatory, if it breaks, you're all up a gum tree..

Back in the nineties I almost set up a business repairing toilet locks in pubs.
Landlords sadly didn't want to pay for the work to be done but would sometimes take the hint.