Fire wardens play a critical role in care homes and require comprehensive training to ensure they can fulfil their duty to protect residents. If you are a care home owner or manager and are looking to update your team’s training here’s what’s required so you can fulfil your duty to provide effective fire warden training.
1. The required fire warden training content
Care home staff who have the role of fire warden need to be able to:
- move residents as part of the evacuation strategy adopted for the home
- help those on the premises to leave in the event off a fire
- check the premises to ensure everyone has left
- use firefighting equipment if safe to do so
- liaise with the fire and rescue service on arrival
- shut down vital equipment
- perform a supervisory/managing role in any fire situation.
This means they need to have: a detailed knowledge of the fire safety strategy of the premises; awareness of human behaviour in fires; the authority to encourage others to use the most appropriate escape route; and the ability to search safely for people inside the care home.
These skills can only be learnt through thorough fire warden training. Here’s our fire warden course content.
2. A qualified trainer
Some elements of fire safety training for care homes can be done online. However, the importance of face-to-face training should not be under-estimated.
Fire wardens need advanced training and must be able to use fire extinguishers– a skill that can only be learnt through practical training. Furthermore, care home owners and managers need to keep a record of this training in order to comply with their duties under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and as set out in the Fire Safety Risk Assessment Supplementary guide: Means of Escape for Disabled People.
Employing a trainer will make this process easier. The Government’s Communities and Local Government (CLG) Guide to Fire Safety Risk Assessment for Residential Care Premises gives care homes best practice to follow when appointing a trainer. It says they should be accredited trainers so they understand the people they are training and their needs.
At Benfield Fire Safety all our trainers have the following qualifications for the benefit of our clients:
- Train the Trainer qualified
- Assessor qualified
- Verifier qualified
In addition, our training instructors hold qualifications to instruct people in the use of breathing apparatus and becoming incident commanders, which enriches our courses.
The CLG guidance also says trainers working with care homes should have relevant experience. At Benfield Fire Safety our team have all served as full time fire officers, retained fire fighters or are ex-Armed Forces. In addition all our instructors have qualifications in NVQ Levels 5 & 7 in management.
3. Modern fire safety training technology
The Government’s CLG guidance places importance on appointing a trainer who uses modern fire safety training technology to support their courses.
Benfield Fire has invested extensively in state-of-the-art training equipment. Our training simulations are carried out with digital fire extinguishers and smoke goggle technology to create a realistic environment with no risk.
We also provide fire extinguisher training outdoors with a fully controlled gas rig.
Our clients say they find our training interactive, fun, professional and enjoyable. Read our client testimonials.
If your care home would benefit from realistic fire warden training delivered by professionals, please contact Benfield Fire Safety by emailing Customerservice@benfieldfs.co.uk or calling 0300 303 3277.
