No toilet in shop
2
2
Date of visit: June 2026
I have experience of challenges around: a hidden impairment and accessing toilets.
I use or have experience of: disabled toilet, hidden impairment, toilets
Overall Rating
Poor
I had an appointment at the Specsavers Opticians in the Derbion centre, Derby yesterday at 10:50am. I was greeted with courtesy as I would expect. Although the staff were excellent in their attention to my problem there is one area which has come up a few times whilst shopping and not just for Specsavers outlets. This happens quite a lot in my opinion. I have a condition which means that I need to visit a toilet quite urgently. The condition is under the umbrella of Chrohs disease which incorporates Ulcerative Colitis and Diverticulitis. Unfortunately on this occasion I had the urgent need to use a toilet and asked if I could use their toilet. I also have a “Bladder and Bowel” emergency card which I have to show to a person so tell them that this is an urgent request. I was told that they DID NOT have any toilets for customer use. By this time I was getting pains in my tummy and could feel that something was going to happen sooner rather than later. Unfortunately I had to be a bit stronger in my delivery saying that “ if you want me to poo my pants while I am here then so be it”. The lady then went away and spoke to someone and came back saying that I could use their in house toilet which was for staff only and that it was up 2 flights of stairs. I had to move as slowly as possible as to not aggravate the bowel any further to make me have an accident. Trying to climb the stairs very slowly I could feel things happening and unfortunately I didn’t make it to the toilet on time and therefore there was a very large evacuation of my bowel. I eventually got to the toilet and had to strip of all my lower garments as I was covered. The staff were absolutely brilliant after the fact and supplied me with a black bin bag and plenty of hand towels so that I could clean myself up. Fortunately for me, my wife was also in town so I had to ring her, tell her what had happened and to get me some new shorts, boxers and some socks so that when I was reasonably clean I could t least present myself as back to normal as possible. Obviously I had to go straight home. With this, it just points out how important it is to have a toilet for use on special and unusual cases like this one. It may be company policy not to have customer toilets on your premises but it proves a point as to why you should be aware of people’s conditions other than eyesight or hearing problems. NOT ALL DISABILITIES ARE SEEN. I don’t know the names of the people who helped me at the time but I do want to say a massive thank you to them for helping me retrieve my dignity in this matter.
