How Access Control Makes Your Building Disability Friendly?

What Is Access Control?

Access control is just as it sounds; it controls access to either your place of business or your home. The main benefit of automated control is that it can secure your building electronically without the need for old-fashioned locks and keys. For security and convenience, there is no better way of controlling access to your building. Depending on your system it can even be used to tell you where staff or visitors are within your building.

It is essential that consideration is made to ensure your building is disability friendly. This is especially important for businesses but is increasingly important for homeowners. Fortunately, the flexibility of access control makes it ideally suited to catering for different disabilities, when compared to traditional security measures.

Considerations for Businesses

According to Scope, 18% of working age adults are disabled. This means that when deciding on how best to allow access to your building, considering its suitability for everyone is more important than ever. Luckily, there are many products that will work for either staff or visitors, irrespective of their mobility.

Products That Can Help

Doors are the first thing visitors have to navigate when they visit you. An installation that includes sliding or swing doors can be extremely useful for those in wheelchairs or who have limited movement. They can be automatic sensor doors, or operated by the push of a button; both are suitable for the vast majority of users. Automatic doors, such as the ones we supply at Access Control Solutions, can be combined with the latest security solutions and can be controlled remotely if required. Health and safety are also considered as doors will not close until the way is completely clear. However long a visitor takes to enter, they will still be perfectly safe at all times.

While an automated opening mechanism like this is common in public spaces, it is less commonly used in a secure environment. However, the inclusion of keypads, fobs or biometric security can make automatic doors a viable option in secure areas of your building.

Depending on your property you may also need to consider access to perimeter gates. One of the most common ways to do this is to install automatic gate or barrier that can be raised either by the click of a button or by someone at the other end of an intercom system. This ensures access can be granted without the need to leave a vehicle. This is more convenient for many disabled users and safer for your other staff.

Considerations for Homeowners

For the disabled homeowner, there are similar considerations but also additional things to consider that are unique to a domestic setting. There are therefore systems that are more suitable for domestic situations.

Products That Can Help

A video intercom can be of use here too, as it can help with security and peace of mind if the homeowner can see a visitor before they allow them to come in. This is particularly important in the cases of tradesmen or carers requiring access, as their passes or identification can be scrutinised before attempting to let them enter. The intercoms will allow two-way communication and can be used to open doors or gates automatically or by use of a keypad. This reduces the need for keys to be given out to all and sundry to allow them to enter the premises, ensuring greater security at the same time.

There are also GSM systems which allow you to link your intercom to your phone. This means you can answer your intercom anywhere in your home and can even grant access by entering a few digits into your phone.

Conclusion

There are plenty of considerations that should be made when you are making any building more disability friendly and the suggestions in this article simply provide a few examples of ways that access control can make life easier. It’s important to make general alterations and considerations, particularly in your business, but even more important to tailor your building to the specific access requirements that users may face.

To discuss any of the access control solutions in this article, or to find out more about how we can help, please contact us on 0116 236 6044.


Posted in Access Control