Dementia : an investigation into whether the current process of identifying reasonable adjustment to buildings by access audit is consistent for all disabilities

McLean, SN

Abstract

This paper is part of the author’s investigation of
disabled access to goods and services, to assess
whether current legislation, policing of that legislation
and the processes adopted to facilitate the
terms of the legislation are delivering as intended.
Signs of dementia are often hidden, but they meet
Equality Act definitions for the term ‘disability’.
Dementia creates conditions that can make the use
of buildings difficult. Having established the statutory
position for providing equal access to goods
and services, this paper looks at the building block
of any access strategy — the access audit. Access
audit templates are often used to undertake the
survey part of an access strategy. These often refer
directly to guide documents and standards. The
paper investigates whether these templates, guides
and standards contain the specific checklist items
required to provide equal access for those living
with dementia. It then measures some of the most
commonly used guide documents and templates
against a specific checklist for dementia, to see how
the required adjustments are included. The
research concludes by access auditing two case study
buildings against the dementia checklist. The
buildings have been significantly adjusted to offer
enhanced disability access and the audit will establish
if core adjustments for dementia are included
among those measures. Unfortunately, the paper
concludes by noting that in these case studies, they
mostly have not.

Citation

McLean, S. (2016). Dementia : an investigation into whether the current process of identifying reasonable adjustment to buildings by access audit is consistent for all disabilities. Journal of Building Survey, Appraisal and Valuation, 5(1),

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 13, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Aug 7, 2016
• Publication Date: Aug 7, 2016
• Deposit Date: Apr 13, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 4, 2017
• Journal: Journal of Building Survey, Appraisal & Valuation
• Print ISSN: 2046-9594
• Electronic ISSN: 2046-9608
• Publisher: Henry Stewart Publications
• Volume: 5
• Issue: 1
• Publisher URL: https://www.henrystewartpublications.com/jbsav/v5
• Related Public URLs: https://www.henrystewartpublications.com/jbsav