It is going to lead to more deaths, preventable injuries such as brain injuries from smoke inhalation etc. I believe it contravenes Health and Safety at Work and Equality Rights. Unfortunately, the last two will only be able to be tested when someone dies or suffers serious injury because of the design and it can be proven (it will) that the design lead to the death or injury. But by then, businesses and designers will have spent loads of money sorting out toilets and new stuff will be being designed now.
It affects everyone, but mostly medically vulnerable people and women.
All of the designs (at least two actually stipulate) can be fully enclosed.
It’s only the single sex that doesn’t show a full height door because the profile picture is missing. But then it says the enclosed universal design can be used.
Where do you go when you feel ill in public/at work/out shopping/in a nightclub/bar? Feeling ill and nauseous can be a sign of spiking, heart attack, stroke or seizure. In fact straining in the toilet puts more pressure on organs so going to the loo is a factor in itself. Medically proven and researched.
To put it into perspective, in this country:
•100,000 have a heart attack each year
•100,000 have a stroke each year
•80 people are diagnosed with epilepsy each day (1 in 106 people have epilepsy)
•thousands of people, mainly women are spiked 80% occurring in public at nightclubs and clubs
It is obvious that collapse needs to be considered as a risk.
If a person collapses in a toilet cubicle, their chances of surviving are dependent on
- someone else knowing they are in trouble
- being able to rescue them quickly
These toilet designs have just removed 1 &2. Even if the occupant hasn’t locked the door, or the door lock can be undone from the outside, three of the designs can have an inward opening door so the body would block entry.
The government commissioned a big report from a private company to look at toilet designs in particular for people who are disabled and have long term health conditions. It’s 171 pages long. It did not consider (and they were never mentioned) the long term conditions of diabetes, cardiac conditions or epilepsy. These make up most of the people with long term health conditions. Stroke was mention once - in terms of hand rails. I would think a hand rail is less important than a door gap if you have a stroke in the cubicle. Periods were not considered (apart from ‘sanitary bin’ space) nor menorrhagia. The term ‘menstrual’ and ‘menstruation’ were mentioned twice, and only in the context of two USA studies on trans and non-binary menstrual equity. There were 132 mentions of the word ‘urinal’ and lots of research on urinal heights.
Also - the single sex toilet is positioned centrally and then the sanitary bin squashed in. Male designer methinks. Women would put the bin in, then centre the toilet in the remaining gap.
If you still not convinced… I can then talk about fully enclosed doors and fire safety risk for occupant and rescuer, and also disease risk (both surface contamination and aerosol concentration)?
Door gaps are needed at the top and bottom of the designs.
The documents say women like the safety of these designs. This woman doesn’t and there is absolutely loads of evidence to prove they are less safe. Assaults and rapes happen in private places. Door gaps are needed for safety.
In the consultation, I detailed much of these and, very surprisingly, nothing has been mentioned about door gaps either in the analysis of the consultation nor any of the documents regarding Document T.