Total Priority to Achieving Value for Money in School Hygiene

Published by Angela May for Clos-o-Mat in Education

Compliance with hygiene and toilet requirements is becoming a growing priority in school building- but one that can be easily addressed….

 Total Hygiene, the UK’s leading supplier of accessible and inclusive toileting solutions, has devised a package that ensures whole-life value for money, meeting the requirements of Building Bulletin 102, and the Department for Education’s standard specification for school toilets and hygiene rooms. The package comes as the Government begins releasing funding for the Priority Schools programme, and the Welsh Government publishes good practice guidelines for school toilets.

 Under Total Hygiene’s offering, specifiers can use the company to advise on design, then supply, install AND maintain all the equipment for accessible toilets and hygiene rooms: Total Hygiene is the only British company able to offer the complete raft of services in-house.

“Under the Standard Specification, each school toilet block should have accessible toilets included, and to the same quality and aesthetics as other toilets,” explains Robin Tuffley, Total Hygiene marketing manager. “Latest statistics show that the number of disabled children increased by 62% in the past 25 years, and 60%- 150,000- of the statemented children in England alone are in mainstream schooling, requiring appropriate adaptation of the school environment to meet their needs. The growing number of orders we have to supply and install hygiene rooms, which include changing facilities, in schools reinforces the statistics.”

Wakefield College is just one establishment that has taken advantage of Total Hygiene’s package, installing special accessible toilet facilities not only in the new SkillsXchange, but also in its existing Thornes Park campus, with plans to further include them in another new block at the main Wakefield campus.

 Explained a spokesperson for Wakefield College, “We want to promote access and education to all, and therefore felt the way forward was to put in accessible toilets, each on the ground floor near reception for optimum accessibility.”

 The accessible toilets/ hygiene rooms include space for the disabled person and up to two carers, a height adjustable changing bench, hoist, a height adjustable washbasin and Clos-o-Mat ‘wash and dry’ toilet.

 The biggest-selling unit of its type, the Clos-o-Mat looks like a conventional WC but features integral douching and drying, removing the need for the user or their carer to manually cleanse after toileting, thus improving hygiene, dignity and independence. Observed Kelvin Grimes, Total Hygiene’s accessible toilet specialist, “We worked closely with Wakefield College to develop a solution that would deliver now, and for the future, and encompass as many students’ needs as possible. A hygiene room/accessible toilet with a Clos-o-Mat, rather than a standard WC, was felt to truly fulfill the College’s ethos of access and education to all, regardless of type of disability.”

 Full details of Regulatory requirements, plus product specifications and animations to help specifiers achieve an effective hygiene room are available on Total Hygiene’s website www.clos-o-mat.com.