Accessibility at an NHS Library: A Personal Insight

“You know,” the nurse said, as she helped me into the orthpaedic boot that would be both bane and benefit for the next few weeks, “I hope I get to your age without breaking anything.”

I think I managed a wan grin, hoping my grimace passed for a smile — just. When your profession is ‘librarian,’ you’re not usually seen as a high insurance risk or likely to have many accidents. And I couldn’t help but see the funny side of it all, despite the pain, when I broke my ankle — on the hospital site where I work, although not in the library. I got a whole new insight into what it’s like for those with a physical disability to try to navigate our education centre.

The day of the break (an avulsion fracture, to be very specific), I was walking back from the main hospital along the service road that runs along the back when I suddenly took a tumble and hurt my ankle. 

I managed to make it back to the library office by holding on to walls and sitting down every few steps, but it wasn’t long before I realised I couldn’t put any weight on my foot at all unless I was leaning very heavily on the desk. 

Realising I needed to see a clinician, a colleague helped me reach our Accident and Emergency department, who then referred me to the Urgent Treatment Centre. Initially, the triage nurse thought I’d ‘just’ sprained my ankle, but the X-ray told a different story. 

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It was a perfectly dry day, the sidewalk was well maintained, and my shoes were flat with decent treads, fitted well, and had sturdy straps. We do actually have guidelines around what type of shoes you should wear in our organisational uniform policy. 

Well, if you’re going to do that kind of thing, I suppose the hospital site where you mostly work is as good a place to do it as any.

It also meant that the few months that have followed have given me an insight into both what it’s like to experience the hospital as a patient (albeit an outpatient) and what it’s like for someone with mobility issues to try to navigate the education centre where our library is based.

Both have been pretty eye-opening.

Following the Equality Act 2010, which was approved in parliament that year, the Building Regulations 2010 were also amended. The Education Centre that houses our main library was built after these amendments, in 2013, but crucially, half of it was converted from an older domestic house, complete with steep staircases and other original features. 

Although there are elevators and other lift platforms, as well as some concessions to those with mobility issues in the conversion, my sticks and I discovered that access could definitely be improved—starting with the stairs leading up from the main entrance.

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The main entrance has automatic doors and is level, but beyond that, there’s either a short flight of stairs up to the level where the library, kitchen area, and first set of offices are located, or a platform that you can take instead of that first flight, but it’s temperamental to say the least.

The library itself is laid out over two floors. Although staff can use the elevator and then access the second floor directly with a swipe card, our users either have to use the internal stairs or ask us for assistance with the elevator. This is not ideal, to say the least, for a 24/7 facility. There are several other locations in the building where the only way to move between levels is via staircases — not exactly easy if you’re trying to move heavy teaching equipment, or if you’re struggling to walk with sticks or crutches, let alone access the facilities in a wheelchair.

We do have toilet facilities on the ground floor of the library, and one cubicle is designated as the ‘disabled’ facility. It has grab rails and a pull cord for emergencies — but there is no access button to facilitate automatic door opening or closing.

Disabilities aren’t limited to mobility issues, of course. Increasingly, we’re aware that there are many non-visible disabilities, and here we fare slightly better, but there is always room for improvement. We don’t have an audio loop in the library, for instance, and our smaller, quieter rooms and spaces are in regular demand, with only a couple of areas available.

In previous Trusts where I’ve worked, we’ve managed to make a lot of adjustments: audio loops, ramps, library on the ground floor, and pager answering phones at a height that can be easily accessed by wheelchair users. There have also been adjustments and aids available for those with, for instance, conditions that affect their vision — magnifiers and text-to-audio software. For those with dyslexia, I’m aware that there are different coloured overlays for both print and screen, which can help with readability. 

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At my current Trust, we still have a long way to go before our library service catches up with this. 

So, where do we go from here? Well, the first step is to find out what we should be doing to improve access, and that will almost certainly mean a few conversations with our Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Team; finding out from our Estates teams what adjustments might be possible; and identifying any funding we might be able to tap into. (As for so many services in these straitened times, that’s often the most difficult aspect.)

It’s unlikely that any of this will happen quickly; the NHS is notorious for moving slowly, and it’s currently going through one of the starkest transformations in its history, which spans more than seventy-five years. 

We can always learn from colleagues at other health Trusts too, comparing what they have done to make their library services more accessible, and how they have funded and managed it. So, there will be benchmarking to carry out, and, as always, communication with others who can offer support and suggestions — one of my favourite aspects of being a librarian.

It’s also been enlightening to find out what it means to be a patient at the Trust, and I am eternally grateful to our amazing staff physiotherapy team. They have managed to get me up and, if not running (yet!), certainly walking with more confidence and improving the strength and balance in my ankle day by day. I’ve had cause to thank all the yoga and Pilates classes I took in my twenties and thirties, too — several of which were taught by physiotherapists. 

I now have a small toy box of equipment to help me with the exercises our physiotherapy team has suggested — though I’m not sure I’ll ever look at a beach ball in quite the same way again!

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