Posted By Steven
Trevor

Have you looked at:

http://www.communities.g...nfullguide_id1500417.pdf

Posted By Ashley Wood
As a fire engineering consultant I would advise that there should be a point of safety that is constructed in such a way that will provide fire and smoke protection. Normally escape stairs are classed as protected areas and should have fire resistant doors, door closing devices, smoke and heat strips and should be on an external wall. The previous comment regarding specialist advise is crucial if you are looking to designate an area as a refuge. No offence meant to the fire services, but building construction and speed of flame spread, smoke propagation, etc. is a specialist field and for fire engineers. Always remember that it is not the job of fire fighters to rescue individuals that are left at tops of stairs, etc. Often I come across this one when doing fire risk assessments.

Posted By Ashley Wood
If you have chance read the report on the 'Rose Park' fire. For the folks out there who do not know about this, this was a fire very recently that resulted in a large loss of life. Rose Park is a residential care home. What has been suggested as a 'stay put' policy sounds on first consideration as a reasonable solution to the problem of care home evacuation? The only draw back is the perceived level of fire resistance. The Rose Park report identified various factors that resulted in the loss of life and one of the factors was that the smoke strips on the bedroom doors failed to prevent smoke entering the flats/bedrooms and this killed the occupants. There are lots of reasons why the strips designed to prevent smoke entering the rooms did not work but the main one was the pressure that was created by the fire as it developed. It is true that the fire detection system also appears to have not performed correctly as well as other issues.

So based on what we have learned from the Rose Park fire would you still leave elderly infirm people in there rooms or would you evacuate them to a safe haven where perhaps the stair way is pressurised, with fire rated doors, door closers, detection devices and a fire resistant structure? I am not advocating letting disabled infirm people wander aimlessly within a stairway, I am talking about a minder being with them (buddy system), about having a plan. Once they are in the safe area an orderly evacuation strategy can be developed in conjunction with the carers and the rescue services.

My mother lives in a sheltered housing scheme where they advocate the 'stay put' idea. They used to have a safe area and evacuation strategy. What changed to make the housing association change schemes? Costs, the resident care manager was replaced by a non resident manager, who was then replaced by a part time assistant. There are elderly people who die in there rooms from falls or illness and go unnoticed for days because no one does the checks that they used to do when these schemes were run by the local councils. In Scotland where the Rose Park fire took place, they are now putting sprinkler systems into all new build care homes and the existing ones are being very carefully scrutinised. Here in England and Wales we are not doing this as the incident happened 'North of the border.' Sadly it will take another Rose Park to make people realise here that you cannot just leave people in there rooms. Have a look at www.thermatech.uk.com as they have a section in there news pages about Rose Park.

Let me pose a question to the H&S professionals in the care home and sheltered housing scheme sector. What do you do now? Do you have an evacuation strategy? Is it a stay put or an evacuate to an area of safety scheme? Do you still have resident managers?

Posted By Ken Taylor
It will depend upon the nature of construction and layout of the premises. Some sheltered accommodation is in purpose-built flats with good fire separation whereas some other resembles a care home with common access/egress, etc. This really needs to be discussed with the local fire officer.

Posted By Ashley Wood
Rose Park was modern purpose built building!

Posted By JB
We have just embarked on a thorough review of our evacuation procedures to coincide with the RRO, for both Care Homes and Sheltered Accommodation. We have considered a "stay in your rooms" policy, especially for elderly and frail residents but have favoured "progressive horizontal evacuation" instead. In reaching this decision our risk assessment took into account the following:

Our buildings, although modern and purpose built, do not have intumescent strips and cold smoke seals on all doors.

The fire resisting compartments are generally of 30 minute standard, not 60 minute as stipulated in the new Residential Care Home RA Guidance.

The local Fire Officer has been very helpful and agreed with our findings.

The policy is clear to everyone - when you hear the alarm, evacuate. If you adopt a "stay put" policy there is always going to be doubt, curiosity, misunderstanding etc on whether to stay, knock on other doors, look for the warden for guidance etc. In our view this would increase the risk significantly.

Anyway, I'm sure that our assessment will not apply to every other building and as has been said before your risk assessment will determine the correct course of action.

You may find Part 2 Section 4 of the new Care Home guidance particularly useful

JB

Posted By Ashley Wood

If you run a sheltered housing scheme, as a Landlord you are responsible as far as the RR(FS)O is concerned to take every step to ensure the safety of the persons using your premises, be they tenants or visitors/staff. Generally, what goes on in someone's flat is there concern, but even so you as the landlord must make sure of certain things i. e smoke detectors installed and working, door smoke and heat seals correctly fitted, door closers on main door leading to common corridor, audibility within the rooms from the fire alarms sounders, structural fire integrity. Also, if the scheme is a block of flats and it is designated sheltered housing, then you have to include evacuation as part of your fire risk assessment & planing. You should point out as part of the tenancy agreement that you have such plans, so that the tenant is aware and will not be concerned in the event of alarm that they have to leave the building.

If you have sick or immobile persons within the flats then this should be considered within your assessment and strategy.

Posted By jackw.
Hi Ashley, where did you get the report on Rose Park? I was under the impression that this was being withheld from the public domain until after the trial of the owners/company for several breaches of H&S law, regulations etc.

Posted By Ashley Wood
GT, I recently did a risk assessment for Centre Parks. As part of there plan they have allowed for the cold, etc. when they have to evacuate the pool areas. They have several dozen 'space blankets' and give these to people who are outside in there swim wear! Again, its all about allowing for this eventuality.