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Care home fire safety

Emergency planning at work: the importance of fire safety training

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No-one enjoys thinking about the worst-case scenario. But when you run a business and are responsible for employees, customers and critical infrastructure, emergency planning is vital.

Essentially, emergency planning is about protecting lives and allowing your organisation to return to normal operations as soon as possible. Fire safety training should be at the core of your plan.

Fires can devastate businesses and some never get back up and running again. More than 70% of fires in UK businesses are accidental, with electrical faults being the most common cause.

How does fire safety training fit into emergency planning?

Emergency planning is the process of identifying the risks to your business and mitigating the potential damage. Fire safety training will teach you to act appropriately when an incident happens, following agreed procedures in the interests of your business and everyone present at the time. It will also allow you to review what worked and where things could be improved in the future.

Importantly, fire safety training should happen regularly to allow you to update your emergency planning documents. If there are any changes in your business, your working environment, staffing or operations, these should be all included in your plan and refresher training should be carried out for staff.

Fire evacuation drills

At the heart of emergency planning and fire safety training is the health and safety of your staff and customers. Staff need to be trained to know what to do when an emergency happens.

Your employees must be familiar with your company’s fire evacuation procedure and it must be easy for visitors to follow.

If you are a UK employer, you are required to carry out at least one fire evacuation drill every year. This drill should be as realistic as possible and include all staff.

You team also needs to be aware how to assist customers so that they can be evacuated safely. This might involve additional training involving fire evacuation chairs to assist people with mobility issues. 

Legal compliance

Having a comprehensive emergency plan backed up by training will ensure your business meets the requirements of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 for fire safety in businesses.

You will also reduce the threat of prosecution should an emergency happen.

Talk to experts in emergency planning

Is your workplace and staff equipped to help prevent fire, deal with a fire and get back up and running?

Benfield Fire Safety are fire emergency planning experts offering consultancy and fire safety training to support the development of your business’s emergency plans.

We can offer fire safety assessments, policy creation and fire safety training using state-of-the-art equipment to help make the fire emergency as realistic as possible.

Take a look at some case studies about the businesses and charities we have supported.

To find out more about our fire emergency planning and fire safety services for businesses please get in touch with Benfield Fire Safety by calling 0300 303 3277 or emailing customerservice@benfieldfs.co.uk

Fire risk assessments in residential care homes

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What is a fire risk assessment?

A fire risk assessment is when someone takes a careful look at your premises and the people who use it, from a fire prevention perspective. It helps you understand any potential risks and helps you improve your fire safety in order to keep people safe. Your fire risk assessment forms the basis of all your fire safety plans and is part of the fire safety regulations laid out in the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 replaced most previous fire safety legislation. It was designed to provide a minimum fire safety standard in all non-domestic premises. The Order designates the employer or manager as the ‘Responsible Person’ which means fire safety lies with you. It also states that you must:

  • keep fire risk assessments up to date
  • take reasonable steps to reduce the risk from fire
  • ensure all fire precautions remain current and adequate
  • make sure people can safely escape if there is a fire

 

If you don’t meet these legal obligations, you can go to prison and face an unlimited fine.

Why does a residential care home need a fire risk assessment done by a professional?

All residential care homes must have a fire risk assessment. It’s the law. And you must ensure a suitably competent person completes it. But whilst it is not a legal obligation to use a professional, the person must be able to identify all possible fire risks and hazards. And this is where problems have arisen, as highlighted by the London Fire Brigade’s 2019 assessment of residential care homes in London.

Residential care homes are falling short In 2019, the London Fire Brigade visited 177 care homes in the London area in a series of one-off in-depth inspections. The inspectors discovered huge numbers of serious fire safety failures, such as:

  • One in three premises having inadequate or poorly maintained fire doors
  • Widespread confusion about fire evacuation strategies
  • Roofs often omitted from fire risk assessments (roof voids often increase the spread and severity of a fire)
  • Fire risk assessments being carried out by people without the proper skills and experience

 

On this last point, Assistant Commissioner Daly, continued, to say that:

“To make a proper fire risk assessment, you need to properly understand how fire can travel and develop, otherwise, you’re just guessing your safety plan. You wouldn’t let an under-qualified surgeon operate on you, so why allow someone without the proper experience to undertake your fire risk assessment.”

Use a fire safety professional

Residential care homes are complex environments when considering fire safety. Without specialist training, it is hard to understand all the possible risks. Which is why it is of paramount importance that you use a professional assessor. You must then, by law, implement any fire safety recommendations on the fire risk assessment to ensure you have fulfilled all your obligations. It is your legal responsibility to ensure your residential care home is safe.

  • Your fire risk assessment should then be reviewed annually
  • When there is any significant change to your premises or residents
  • And you must ensure it is written down if there are five or more people on the premises

 

If there’s a fire and you haven’t met your legal duties to keep people safe, you could be fined and may even spend time in prison. Worse still, someone may be injured or killed.

28 years’ experience – book your fire risk assessment today

Benfield Fire Safety works with a lot of residential care homes and is a leading fire safety, fire risk assessment and fire safety training provider with over 28 years of professional experience. Our mission is simple – to save lives. Call us now for a free initial chat and to book a consultation by calling 0300 303 3277 or emailing customerservice@benfieldfs.co.uk.

Further resources

The government has published a guide to help employers, managers, occupiers and owners of residential care homes navigate the complexity of fire safety. It can be found here.

Fire safety advice for residential care homes

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Residential care homes are particularly complex environments when considering fire safety. But all too often many of these risks are overlooked. If you don’t have adequate fire doors installed, well-trained staff, and planned escape routes, a small fire has the potential to spread quickly and injure or kill large numbers of people. This was highlighted by the recent London Fire Brigade Inspections.

The London Fire Brigade Inspections

In 2019, the London Fire Brigade visited 177 care homes in a series of one-off in-depth inspections. The inspectors were shocked to find huge numbers of serious fire safety failures, such as:

  • – One in three premises with inadequate or poorly maintained fire doors
  • – Widespread confusion about fire evacuation strategies
  • – Fire risk assessments being carried out by people without the proper skills and experience
  • – Roofs being omitted from fire risk assessments – roof voids often increase the spread and severity of a fire

The Fire Brigade was so concerned that they wrote to every care home in the capital demanding they urgently review their fire risk assessments, emergency plans, and staff training.

The Brigade’s Assistant Commissioner, Dan Daly, said:

“Over half the care homes we inspected had to make improvements to their fire safety arrangements despite them housing some of London’s most vulnerable residents. My main concern is that this audit is only the tip of the iceberg.”

Common causes of fires in residential care homes

The main cause of fires in residential care homes is said to be cooking and cookers (41%); followed by kitchen appliances (21%); then smoking-related (13%). But arbitrary figures won’t help you with your fire safety planning. Here are just a few of the things you need to consider when making your residential care home fire safe.

1. Your residents

In the event of a fire, many of your residents may not be able to make their way unaided to a safe place. This requires planned evacuation routes and adequate staffing numbers, even at night, and regardless of fluctuating shift patterns. Consideration regarding the placement of residents should always be a factor; place more mobile residents on the upper floors and those less mobile must be a consideration when planning staff numbers on the night shift. If staff numbers are restricted to two or three, ensure the fire plan for the night shift differs from the day shift. During night operations the first course of action should be to call the fire authority without delay, consideration for the installation of a monitoring station can also improve the response time by the fire authority.

It is the responsibility of the Responsible Person to ensure they can demonstrate that residents can adequately be moved as part of the fire strategy in the event of fire. Leaving residents for the fire authority to rescue is not an option.

2. The building

Residential care homes pose many challenges. You need compliant fire doors in corridors separated at correct distances. You need clearly marked evacuation routes. You need the correct fire extinguishers in the optimal locations. You need well-trained staff that should also be trained in the use of extinguishers. You need a L1 fire alarm system properly installed throughout the building, in some cases, even in cupboards. These are just a few of the many different considerations. So, unless you are professionally trained in fire safety, it is easy for something to be overlooked.

3. The roof

Roof spaces are often omitted from fire risk assessments yet pose a huge fire risk. This was tragically highlighted in 2017 when two people died in a residential care home. The fire and smoke travelled through voids in the roof which allowed it to quickly engulf the entire building. Fire crews found many residents trapped in rooms, too frail to move themselves to safety. Smoke is the biggest killer in a fire situation; you must ensure roof void compartmentation is correctly installed and remains intact. Often contracts will breach roof void fire compartmentation with no consideration for fire stopping or the client’s requirements. All roof voids need to have adequate fire detection installed as part of the L1 fire alarm system.

But the greatest risk of all

The greatest risk of all to fire safety in residential care homes is an inadequate fire risk assessment carried out by an untrained person. This leaves all your residents, staff, and the entire building, at risk of fire, injury and possible death.

Arrange for a professional fire risk assessment

By law, all residential care homes are required to have a fire risk assessment. This must be completed by a suitably competent person. You need to ensure this person is able to identify all possible fire risks and hazards. The easiest way to ensure this is done is by using a professional. After receiving your fire risk assessment all recommendations must, by law, be implemented. And your staff all require proper fire safety training. You must also ensure you can carry out evacuation drills simulating residents with use of staff. You need to demonstrate that staff can adequately be evacuated in a timely fashion and they should not become a casualty as a result of not moving them, if it is safe to do so.

Benfield Fire Safety – call us now for a free initial chat

Benfield Fire Safety works with a lot of residential care homes has over 28 years of professional experience as a leading fire safety, fire risk assessment and fire safety training provider. Our mission is simple. We want to save lives. We can complete your fire risk assessment and provide you and your staff with fire safety training.

Call us now for a free initial chat and to book a consultation by calling 0300 303 3277 or emailing customerservice@benfieldfs.co.uk

Preparing for a fire safety audit in a residential care home

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Benfield Fire Safety attended a great presentation at FIREX International 2019 delivered by Chris Callow of London Fire Brigade and hosted by the FPA. It was titled ‘Fire Safety in Residential Care Homes – Common Failures and Lessons Learned’.

Chris said that the London Fire Brigade among other fire authorities will be auditing all care homes under their authority to ensure compliance with fire safety law. Audits are due to take place in September and October 2019. Those found to be non-compliant could be served with enforcement and prosecution may take place.

Here are some points to consider in order to prepare for your audit:

  1. Do your staff only undergo eLearning as the method of fire safety education, if so, you need to move towards blended learning as eLearning is a one-dimensional approach that is not fit for purpose.
  2. How many staff are employed on your nightshift and how many service users do you have? Can your staff effectively move residents in a compartment of up to six bedrooms into another area of the building and behind two fire doors as part of your evacuation strategy within 2.5 minutes?
  3. Have you tested your evacuation strategy in a simulated capacity, not involving residents, of course, to see if you can achieve the evacuation strategy within the prescribed timeframes?
  4. Do you ensure for the night shift that the fire authority is called before other actions are addressed? Time is critical if you have a fire and the minutes lost could prove to be devastating for the occupants, families and your business.

If you own a residential care home and would like more fire safety advice – please get in touch with me by calling 0300 303 3277 or emailing customerservice@benfieldfs.co.uk

Flexible training on how to use evacuation sledges in care homes

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Here at Benfield Fire Safety, we appreciate that staff training in a care home environment can be a juggling act. This is why we offer flexible fire safety training, including teaching staff how to use evacuation sledges to prepare them should the worst happen. We’ll even turn up on a Friday evening and not charge you extra.

Why are evacuation sledges so important?

Evacuation sledges in care homes are a key asset when it comes to fire safety and response. Residents can be moved out of the building either in a vertical or horizontal fashion. The sledge protects them from any bumps along the way and is easy for staff to manoeuvre.

However, the first time staff use this important fire safety equipment should not be when faced with serious or impending danger. Alarmingly, not all fire safety training providers offer this important tuition.

What does the training involve?

When we visit your care home to train staff to use evacuation sledges, we use simulated casualties. This ensures that all staff can take part in the exercise and benefit from a realistic scenario played out to the highest possible training standards. No-one is expected to act as the casualty and put him or herself at risk.

Whether you need evening fire training or sessions to fit in around different staff shifts, we can offer you quality training to meet your needs. Plus we won’t charge a premium for this.

Quality evacuation sledge training

Benfield Fire Safety is highly experienced in care home fire safety and works flexibly to offer clients support ranging from fire safety risk assessments to policy creation and fire safety training.

All of our fire safety trainers are ex-fire officers with more than 25 years’ experience in the fire sector. We work to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, Care Home Regulations Act 2001 and also the HM Government guidance for care homes. Plus we are an IOSH approved training provider, qualified to advise care homes on evacuation chairs and sledges.

To find out more about our flexible care home fire safety training please get in touch with Benfield Fire Safety by calling 0300 303 3277 or emailing customerservice@benfieldfs.co.uk

 

Evacuation Chairs: a Beginner’s Guide

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If you have a lift in your building, the chances are that you also need an evacuation chair. Using lifts in the event of a fire is generally forbidden, but you must ensure that all people – regardless of their mobility – can still exit safely in the event of an emergency.

What is an evacuation chair?

An evacuation chair – or sometimes a mat or sledge – helps people with mobility issues to get downstairs quickly in the event in an emergency.

Who needs an evacuation chair?

It’s not only people in wheelchairs for whom you need to provide an evacuation chair. Others that may need them include:

  • Visually impaired people
  • People with balance issues
  • Women in the later stages of pregnancy
  • The elderly and infirm
  • People with joint problems, especially in the hips or knees
  • Anyone who’d struggle to descend stairs quickly

How do evacuation chairs work?

Most evacuation chairs use the weight of the person in the chair to apply downward pressure to a brake-belt system, which ensures the chair moves down the stairs at a controlled speed. When arriving at ground level, the chairs can usually be used as wheelchairs to further aid a swift exit to safety.

All evacuation chairs in the UK require at least one person to operate the chair, assisting the person with the mobility issues that is sat within it. Many chairs require two operators. Training is important with evacuation chairs. Using one can be nerve-wracking, especially with the added pressure of an emergency.

Evacuation chairs vs. evacuation mats and sledges

Evacuation mats and sledges don’t have any built-in speed controls. They are fully reliant on the strength and agility of the operators to control the rate of descent as they slide down the stairs.

Unlike evacuation chairs, evacuation mats and sledges are at ground level. Depending on the nature of the mobility issues for the evacuee, this can present additional challenges for them and for operators when entering and exiting the mat/sledge, and can slow-down exit from the building as the evacuee must first get off of the mat/sledge before making their way to safety.

However, mats and sledges are cheap and flexible, so they may be the better choice for you depending on your circumstances and the people you’re assisting.

Evacuation chairs and the law

Are evacuation chairs a legal requirement? This is something that should have been identified in your fire risk assessment, but the answer is: It depends.

If, at any time, you have people in your building that would find it difficult to descend a flight of stairs at speed, then yes, you need an evacuation chair or other aid, and operators trained to use it.

As the building owner or manager, it is your responsibility to ensure that everyone can exit the building in the event of a fire, taking account of lifts that will be out of action.

How many evacuation chairs do you need?

The answer to “How many evacuation chairs do I need?” should be in your fire risk assessment because it depends on the number of people that the chairs are intended to help. For example, a care home or hospice will probably need greater provision than an office. It also depends on the nature of your building. For example, if your building has refuge points or places of relative safety, your Fire Emergency Evacuation Plans may allow you to re-use a single evacuation chair to help several people exit your building.

Where should evacuation chairs be located

Again, this is a matter for your Fire Risk Assessment. If you need evacuation chairs, then they need to be located wherever your potential users might be. As a guide, the chairs should, as a minimum, be located at the top of every stairwell to allow for a scenario in which one or more stairwells is out of action due to the emergency incident.

Buying an evacuation chair

Cost is always a consideration in buying evacuation chairs, but it should not be your only consideration.

Who will operate it?

Some chairs rely on upper body strength to control them. To minimise the risk of an accident in which the evacuee is dropped down the stairs, consider who will be moving the chair, and what they can reasonably manage.

If you’re relying on the same operators to move several people down the stairs, remember that the operators may be tired from earlier evacuations, and take this into account.

If you can, try the chairs before you buy.

How many people does the chair take to operate it?

Some chairs require one operator and some require two. You must train all operators on how to use the chair, so think about ongoing training costs before you buy. We recommend that training is refreshed annually so that you stay prepared for an emergency.

Remember that if a chair requires two operators, you may need to train four people so that you are covered for staff absence and leavers.

Where will it be used?

How wide is your narrowest escape route? Make sure that you arm yourself with this information before you shop so that you can compare the turning circles of the chairs you are considering.

See if your retailer will allow you to trial the chair in your building before you buy.

Is it easy to use?

In an emergency, your operators will be under stress and will need to act quickly to get the evacuee (and themselves) to safety. The chair needs to be quick and simple to set-up, and easy to use on the descent. Avoid fiddly or complicated chairs.

How does it feel to sit in the chair?

Emergency evacuations are distressing, so it’s important that the evacuee feels secure in the chair to avoid delays caused by panic. If your potential evacuees have conditions which cause them pain, then consider comfort as well. Equally, if your potential evacuees are obese or larger than average in build, the chair will need to be big and strong enough to accommodate them.

When you review the chairs, sit in them yourself.

  • Which makes you feel most secure?
  • Which is most comfortable?
  • Which has the widest seat?
  • Which has the greatest weight tolerance?

How to use an evacuation chair

Online training and instruction manuals can only give you pointers on using your chair. To ensure your people are both confident and competent in the face of an emergency, they need to practice using the chair, ideally in your own building.

Using an evacuation chair can be stressful. That’s why our course first builds confidence through practice with a life-like weighted mannequin before trainees experience what it’s like in the chair, and practice evacuating one another. Learn more about our evacuation chair course.

For help and advice on evacuation chairs, get in touch

We offer fire safety consultation, fire risk assessments and a range of fire safety training courses including evacuation chair training. To discuss your fire safety concerns, contact Benfield Fire Safety by calling 0300 303 3277 or emailing customerservice@benfieldfs.co.uk