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It has recently come to our attention that local Schools have changed their toilet access policy to state that a Doctor’s note should be provided in order to allow the provision of a “toilet pass” to pupils.
This has been done without consultation with the local surgeries.
Access to safe, timely and appropriate personal hygiene is a considered to be essential to human dignity. This is particularly important to people who have periods, which often vary in timing and heaviness, especially in the years surrounding menarche. While discipline issues are important and a small percentage of pupils abuse their right to access
personal hygiene, this is not a medical issue. It is also not an NHS matter to provide evidence of a child’s lack of continence, urinary or faecal urgency or menstrual difficulties. It is not dignified for a pupil to be singled out as having toileting difficulties and there are significant potential medical ramifications in either deliberately dehydrating to prevent the need for a toilet or in withholding either stool or urine and both can worsen continence issues.
It is also significantly harmful to a young person’s mental wellbeing to risk an episode of incontinence within the classroom or to prevent them accessing menstrual hygiene, leading to soiling. In addition, especially in these uniquely challenging times, where both workload and finance are significantly strained in all public sectors, it is not possible for us to take on additional non-funded work. We are also not prepared to charge the children or their families for paperwork to allow them
basic dignity.
As such, this surgery will not be providing separate notes to specific pupils to allow them to use the toilet. Whether an individual child can delay their needs until the end of a lesson is a matter for the school, the child and their family. If you feel it necessary, please accept this letter as confirmation that we consider that all children have a need to access a toilet when they need to use it for urinary, defecation or menstrual reasons.
