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The importance of door safety in UK schools

Needless to say, door safety is an important area of consideration in building safety. For that reason, it should be an integral element of every building design.

Trying to retroactively follow the dynamic safety regulations can be challenging, tedious and very costly. So why not proactively embrace door safety in the building design and make sure that all bases, both in terms of safety and regulation, are covered? When it comes to building design, taking the same preventive approach is especially important for schools.

What’s the risk?

More than 30,000 children trap their fingers between doors every year and suffer finger injuries. The better part of those affected are below the ages of eight. This means that, in schools, measures to prevent door-related finger accidents are critical.

In addition, door safety is an area that underlines the importance of a smart safety design that caters to the building and its visitors; not only to the compliance with health and safety regulations. Though there are no specific laws that make door finger guards for schools obligatory, the repercussions of turning a blind eye to them can be substantial – UK schools have paid out hundreds of thousands of pounds in damages due to finger-related injuries over the last 5 years.

Conclusion

Failing to install door finger guards can lead to some extremely serious, yet completely avoidable, accidents. Considering that the price of finger guards is very low, the expense of prevention pales in comparison to the cost of doing nothing.

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