There is a particular sinking feeling that every wheelchair user and every carer knows. You have found the accessible toilet. You have got there in time. And the door will not open, or it opens onto a mop bucket, a stack of high chairs and a broken parasol.
It happens constantly, and it happens for a small number of very repeatable reasons.
The five ways it goes wrong
1. It is being used as a cupboard
The most common failure by a distance. The accessible toilet is the biggest room with the fewest daily users, so it quietly becomes storage. This is worth mentioning to a manager every single time, politely and without heat. Half of them are genuinely embarrassed and clear it out.
2. It is locked and nobody knows who has the key
Many accessible toilets are on the National Key Scheme, which means they use a standard RADAR key. Carry your own — you can buy one from Amazon, Disability Rights UK or a local council for a few pounds, and it is the single best value item in our bag. When a venue has its own key instead of a standard one, you are at the mercy of whoever is on shift.
3. The emergency cord is tied up
The red cord should reach the floor. It is there so that someone who has fallen can pull it. It gets knotted up out of the way because staff are tired of it being pulled by mistake. Untie it. Every time. It takes four seconds and it is genuinely a safety issue.
4. The grab rails are on the wrong side
Transfers are usually one-sided. A toilet with a rail only on the left is unusable for someone who transfers to the right, no matter how big the room is. There is nothing to be done about this on the day, which is why we ask about it in advance.
5. It exists, but you cannot use it
A standard accessible toilet assumes you can transfer yourself, or with one person’s help. If you need a hoist and a changing bench, a standard accessible loo does not help at all. That is what Changing Places toilets are for — larger rooms with a hoist, an adult-sized bench and space for two carers. There are now several thousand across the UK, and new large public buildings in England have been required to include them for a few years. The Changing Places website has a map, and we plan long days around it.
What we do
We find the toilet first, before the coffee, before the exhibition, before anything. It sounds joyless and it is not — it is the opposite. Knowing where it is, and that it works, is what lets you relax and actually enjoy the day.
Your turn: if you have experiences of your own — the places that got it right, and the ones that got it badly wrong — tell us in the comments below. Every report helps the next traveller.
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