Less than users assume. A hook is fixed into a laminate door leaf, and the practical limit is set by the fixing into that panel rather than by the strength of the hook itself.

A coat and a small bag are within normal expectations. A heavy rucksack swung onto a hook applies a shock load several times its static weight, and that is the case that pulls fixings out of a door.

Where heavier loads are expected, a through-fixed hook with a plate on the opposite face spreads the load across the leaf, and a shelf is a better answer than a larger hook.

A hook designed to collapse or shed its load once a set weight is applied, so it cannot support a person's weight. Typically a sprung or hinged arm folds down flat against the door.

They are specified in mental health, custodial, education and some healthcare washrooms, where any fixed projection at height is treated as a ligature risk.

The release threshold is part of the specification and differs by setting. A hook that releases too readily is a nuisance and will be replaced by staff with a fixed one, which defeats the purpose, so the threshold is chosen deliberately.

On the wall or panel beside the pan rather than on the door, and set below the hook line so a coat does not sweep whatever is on it. A shelf on a moving door loses its contents every time the door swings.

Depth is the constraint in a standard cubicle. Anything projecting far enough to be genuinely useful starts to narrow the circulation space, which matters most in the accessible cubicle where transfer space is dimensioned.

A shallow shelf with a lipped front holds a phone and a small bag without intruding, and it is easier to clean than a deep one that collects things behind them.

Wheeled traffic, mostly. Cleaning trolleys, scrubber-driers, luggage and wheelchairs all strike the exposed vertical edge of a panel at a run end, and laminate edges chip rather than dent.

Once an edge is chipped the core is exposed, and in a wet room that is where water starts to get into the panel. A guard is cheap protection for a panel that is not.

They are most worthwhile at the ends of runs, at the entrance to the washroom and beside any doorway a trolley passes through, rather than uniformly along a cubicle line.

Yes, and they are the fittings most often added later, which is precisely why they need thought. Every one is a new hole through a laminate face that cannot be undone.

The fixing has to suit the panel rather than the wall: an insert or a through-bolt into compact laminate, not a woodscrew. A screw biting into laminate holds initially and loosens under cycling.

It is also worth checking what is behind the position. Drilling a door where the latch backing plate sits, or a panel where a bracket is fixed on the other face, produces an unpleasant surprise.

They can undo it entirely. A washroom fitted out with sloped headrails, closed latches and concealed fixings, then given a standard projecting coat hook, has a ligature point in it again.

This happens most often as an afterthought, when a cubicle in a secure setting is improved for user comfort without the original specification being consulted.

Where any anti-ligature requirement exists, hooks, shelves and guards are part of that specification rather than accessories to it, and load-release patterns are used throughout.

Solid stainless in a satin finish, for the same reason it is used on the rest of the cubicle: the finish goes all the way through, so a scratch does not expose a different material underneath.

Plated and coated fittings look identical on day one and differ after a year of hands, keys and abrasive cleaning. Once the coating is broken at a wear point, corrosion starts underneath and lifts more of it.

Matt black and coloured finishes are increasingly specified for appearance, and there the quality of the coating system counts for more than it would on a part nobody touches.