Day: August 8, 2025

Investment in accessible community toilets

£10 million fund opens to support people with complex needs

Over 25,000 people in Scotland with complex needs and disabilities, and their families, could benefit from a £10 million Scottish Government investment in community toilet facilities.

The Changing Places Toilets Scotland Fund will support the provision of up to 150 specialist accessible toilets to meet the needs of disabled people who require carer support and equipment to use facilities.

There are currently 270 Changing Places Toilets in Scotland, an increase of 30% since 2019 when new legislation required these accessible spaces to be included in large new buildings with public access.

£10 million will be allocated across 2025-26 and 2026-27 and the Fund, administered by Inspiring Scotland, is now open for applications. Priority will be given to areas which do not currently have adequate provision of Changing Places Toilets.

Mental Wellbeing Minister Tom Arthur said: “Access to toilet facilities is a fundamental human right. Changing Places Toilets offer vital facilities for people with disabilities and their families and carers whose needs cannot be met through standard accessible toilet provision.

“I am very pleased the Fund has now launched. This £10 million investment in Changing Places Toilets will make a huge difference to thousands of disabled people and their families and carers, enabling them to participate fully in society and access community resources.”

Jill Clark, a Glasgow-based Changing Places Toilets user, said: “By having lots of Changing Places Toilets, I have more freedom to go places without worrying if I get to the toilet.”

PAMIS (Promoting a more inclusive society) CEO Jenny Miller said: “This investment and opportunity to dramatically increase the number of Changing Places Toilets across Scotland will make an enormous difference to the lives of some of the most excluded people within our society.

“Filling the gaps in the provision of this essential facility will open up the whole of Scotland and ensure everyone has the same opportunity to travel, access public spaces and engage in their communities.

“We are proud to be working alongside both the Scottish Government and Inspiring Scotland on this important project over the coming months, helping to ensure that new Changing Places Toilets are thoughtfully planned, well supported, and sustainably delivered across the country.”

Changing Places Toilets (CPT) are larger accessible toilets, with specialist equipment. They are designed to meet the needs of disabled people who need carer support and equipment to use the facilities. CPTs ensure people have their personal care needs met, fulfilling this basic human right for them.

CPTs offer a vital facility for disabled people and their families and carers whose needs cannot be met through standard accessible toilet provision. 

This includes people with profound learning and multiple disabilities, people with muscular dystrophy, older people, veterans, people who require the use of a larger wheelchair and people who require a calm and quiet environment.

CPTs have key features which distinguish them from standard accessible toilets as they:

  • offer adequate space (at least 12m2) for a disabled person, as well as space for their wheelchair to turn, and one or two carers.
  • have an adult-sized, height-adjustable changing bench to allow people to lie down to have their personal care needs met.
  • have a ceiling hoist to lift people out of their wheelchair safely
  • have a centrally placed peninsular toilet which provides access for people who require support on both sides.

GHF-run food distributions in Gaza are sites of “orchestrated killing”

A REPORT BY MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES

  • The GHF-run food distributions in Gaza, Palestine, have become sites of “orchestrated killing and dehumanisation”, not humanitarian aid.
  • A new MSF report documents the horrors witnessed by MSF staff at two clinics that regularly received mass influxes of casualties following violence at sites run by the GHF.
  • MSF calls for the immediate dismantling of the GHF scheme and the restoration of the UN-coordinated aid delivery mechanism.

An analysis of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical data, patients’ testimonies, and first-hand medical witnessing at two MSF clinics in Gaza, Palestine, point to both targeted and indiscriminate violence by Israeli forces and private American contractors against starved Palestinians at food distribution sites run by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). 

MSF calls for the immediate dismantling of the GHF scheme; the restoration of the UN-coordinated aid delivery mechanism; and calls on governments, especially the United States, as well as private donors to suspend all financial and political support for the GHF, whose sites are essentially death traps.

A new MSF report, This is not aid. This is orchestrated killing, documents the horrors witnessed by MSF staff at two clinics that regularly received mass influxes of casualties following violence at sites run by the GHF, an Israeli-US proxy that has militarised food distribution.

Between 7 June and 24 July 2025, 1,380 casualties, including 28 dead, were received at MSF’s Al-Mawasi and Al-Attar clinics in southern Gaza, located near the GHF-run distribution sites. 

During those seven weeks, our teams treated 71 children for gunshot wounds, 25 of whom were under the age of 15. Faced with no alternatives to find food, starved families frequently send teenage boys into this lethal environment, as they are often the only males in the household physically able to make the journey.

In May 2025, the genocide in Gaza, Palestine, took a further disturbing turn as Israeli authorities sought to dismantle the UN-led humanitarian response and replace it with a militarised food distribution scheme run by a previously unknown entity — the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). All four distribution sites operated by the GHF are located in areas under full Israeli military control and “secured” by private American armed contractors.

MSF’s report ‘This is not aid. This is orchestrated killing’ draws on medical data, patient testimonies and first-hand medical witnessing to demonstrate that what has been branded as “aid distribution” is in fact a system of institutionalised starvation and dehumanisation.

MSF calls for an immediate cessation of the GHF distribution mechanism and urges states and private donors to refrain from funding what is essentially a death trap.

This is not aid. This is orchestrated killing.pdf — 2.63 MBDownload

MSF operates two primary healthcare centres in southern Gaza located in close proximity to the GHF distribution sites. Between 7 June and 24 July 2025, these health centres received 1,380 injured people, including 28 dead bodies from the GHF sites.

This represents only a fraction of the total number of people killed and injured at the distribution sites. MSF’s two health centres — due to their sheer proximity to the GHF sites — now place biweekly orders for body bags.

Over a seven-week period in June and July 2025, MSF staff treated 174 people for gunshot wounds originating from the GHF sites. The vast majority of those injured — 96 per cent — were young men. This reflects a grim survival strategy: families are sending the youngest and fittest to retrieve food.

The injured who arrive in our clinics are normally covered in sand and dust from time spent lying on the ground while taking cover from bullets.

A significant number of injured patients coming from the Khan Younis distribution centre (SDS3) had gunshot wounds to the lower limbs. The anatomical precision of these injuries strongly suggests intentional targeting of people within the distribution sites, rather than accidental or indiscriminate fire.

Of the 28 dead bodies received in our health centres, all but one were young men (aged 20–30 approximately) with gunshot wounds to the upper body.