Total Approach to Hygiene Needs

Published by Angela May for Total Hygiene in Education

The movement towards inclusion and integration has seen numbers of pupils with special and complex needs in mainstream schools increase to almost 20%, prompting the need to provide specialist toilet/hygiene facilities for them.

 The Department of Education’s Building Bulletins 77 and 102 provide design guidance, the former outlining requirements for hygiene rooms- a convenient solution to meeting the needs of pupils in wheelchairs. Such areas should have space for at least the student and one or two adult support workers, a hoist, mobile height adjustable trolley for showering and/or changing, and a washbasin.

 Total Hygiene, the UK’s leading disabled toileting solutions provider, is uniquely positioned to help schools comply, providing a ‘one stop shop’ for advice, design, supply, installation and maintenance of all the equipment recommended for a hygiene room.

 Total Hygiene’s range of equipment not only meets the core requirements of the Building Bulletins, but can go beyond, to deliver greater independence for the child (and potentially overcome any potential issues re intimate care) from simple grab rails through hoists and height adjustable basins to its Clos-o-Mat floor-mounted Palma Vita and height adjustable Lima Lifter ‘wash and dry’ toilets.

 Conscious of LEA budget constraints, the company has introduced a raft of packages for certain equipment, from short-term rental to outright purchase.

Robin Tuffley, Total Hygiene marketing manager, explains, “Latest research by the Bog Standard* campaign reveals that almost half of the schools surveyed have no disabled toilets despite one in five pupils in mainstream education being special needs. Our equipment and supply options enable school managers to make effective decisions on how to improve their school toilets- and thus contribute to an improved environment for their pupils.”

 King James College in Bishop Auckland is one school which has taken advantage of using one expert source of supply.  The latter’s SENCO (Special education needs co-ordinator) observes, “Because of the physical difficulties some of our students have, we needed to undertake some adaptations to conventional toilet facilities. We have created a new room, with a height adjustable Clos-o-Mat, height adjustable basin and height adjustable changing table, all supplied by Total Hygiene. The students love it! We worked closely with a whole range of professionals the get the best advice, and provide the most flexible facilities that would meet the needs, and increase independence, of not only our current students, but those of the future.”