Imagine an accessible toilet alarm’s been activated in one of your buildings. Now what?

• Is anyone around to see it?
• How do you know that someone will respond?

The need for accessible toilet alarms

Alarms in accessible toilets are critically important. Toilet alarms provide people with the ability to call for help from accessible toilets. They also help responders know when assistance is needed at these facilities.

These alarms should be fitted in accessible toilets and Changing Places.

(Changing Places are fully accessible toilets designed to provide disabled people and their care assistants/families with access to the right equipment and appropriate spacing.

According to the UK Government, at least a quarter of a million people in the UK need Changing Places toilets in order to “have their toileting needs met in a safe, dignified and humane way”.)

Toilet alarms – standalone or centralised?

When activated, most toilet alarm designs will flash and/or sound an alarm outside the WC.

But what happens if there’s nobody nearby to see or hear the alarm?

An enhanced solution would include sending a notification directly to somebody who is trained to respond to it… somebody working from a security office or reception, for example.

Sending these types of notifications is possible via a suitable Emergency Voice Communication System (EVCS) which can display notifications at a centrally-located ‘Master Station’.

Some Emergency Voice Communication Systems (such as our radio-based Refuge Alerter system) allow for integration of numerous toilet alarms and panic alarms. Refuge Alerter even works if the toilet alarm is located in a different building than the Master Station!

Other benefits of integrating your toilet alarm with Refuge Alerter

• Notifications on-the-move

Refuge Alerter is radio-based, which allows the use of ‘Portable Refuge Communicators’ or ‘PRCs’ (mobile devices that respondents can carry with them around buildings or campuses). Notifications that come through to the master station will also come through to PRCs.

This setup means that respondents don’t need to remain at a Master Station in order to receive notifications.

• BS8300-compliant

The Refuge Alerter Accessible Toilet Call System is BS8300-compliant.

Find out more

To find out how to integrate toilet alarms with your existing or new Refuge Alerter system, contact your local Alerter Group sales representative, or email info@alertergroup.com.