Leading home retailer IKEA is continuing its ground-breaking tradition by becoming the first store of its kind in the UK to have a Changing Places toilet in-store……
The group’s Edinburgh outlet has just opened the toilet, which will enable anyone regardless of ability and mobility to enjoy the store.
The new facility has been designed and installed by Total Hygiene, the UK’s top specialist in disabled toileting provision. It is purpose designed to be ‘bigger and better’ than conventional accessible (Document M) toilets, being large enough to accommodate a wheelchair and up to two carers, and featuring equipment including a wetfloor shower area, and ‘Changing Places’ standard fixtures of overhead hoist, peninsula toilet, basin and height adjustable changing bench.
Elizabeth Stanton of IKEA Edinburgh, explained, “At the IKEA Group, we believe that taking responsibility for people is a prerequisite for doing good business. We currently have 42 people with a disability on work experience at IKEA Edinburgh and we are very proud to say that 20 have gained employment at the store. The decision to install a ‘Changing Places’ toilet was entirely our own, in our desire to create something to benefit our co-workers as well as our customers.”
‘Changing Places’ toilets have been developed by the ‘Changing Places Changing Lives consortium, to enable people with a disability to ‘go to the loo’ in a clean and safe environment when out. Research shows that hundreds of thousands of people feel trapped in their own homes by lack of appropriate toilets in public locations. To date, the campaign- sponsored by Total Hygiene (Clos-o-Mat)- has seen almost 250 ‘Changing Places’ toilets installed across the UK.
http://www.clos-o-mat.com/
