Are Restaurants and Bars Failing the Disabled?

Restaurants and bars have a duty of care to their customers with disabilities. Unfortunately, many are not adequately meeting these needs. BBC research, by its Panorama programme, exposed this lack of provision.  Another report, commissioned by Scope and the Extra Costs Commission has estimated a loss of ￡1.5bn to UK businesses, by not properly catering to the needs of people with disabilities.

The Stick and Carrot

Many of these problems are down to poor provision and lack of disability awareness. A House of Lords Select Committee has called for local authorities to be given greater powers to withdraw or refuse to grant or renew licences to premises failing to provide adequate disabled facilities.That’s the stick.  The carrot is the potential ￡1.5bn in revenue from customers with disabilities. 

No-one wants to feel excluded, so taking the right measures to ensure people are included is likely to make them want to use your services. Either way, I believe that making the necessary adjustments feels like the right thing to do.

Getting it Right

In some instances, the problem has been that while some provision has been made, it’s the wrong kind. A lot of places have ramps but these are in poor condition or inadequate to the task.

There are also examples of lifts being made available but they’re the wrong kind of lift for safely moving people with disabilities or they’ve not been adequately maintained.  These are the sorts of provisions that our team are regularly trying to rectify.

There are specific HSE regulations governing the use of lifting equipment. The Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations (LOLER) state that all lifting equipment should be:

“Sufficiently strong, stable and suitable for the proposed use”

Suitability is the crucial thing. Lifts do not provide a one-size-fits-all solution, and different kinds of lift are appropriate for different circumstances and locations.

With this in mind, how much does your bar or restaurant really enable diversity and inclusion?