Posted By shaun mckeever We will shortly be moving our production facility from a ground floor unit to a new building where production will be over two floors - heavier work on the ground floor (for obvious reasons) and lighter duties on the first floor. This is going to give us an issue with regards to the emergency evacuation of one employee who has impaired mobility (mainly due to sciatica and arthritis). There is a lift located at one end of the building and fire escape routes at both ends for which the maximum distance to travel is approx. 40 metres. The employee can’t run but they can walk, albeit rather slowly. Also, said employee cannot be located on the ground floor as the nature of the work has previously been identified as too heavy. In the event of a fire, obviously the lift should not be used but then what practical measures can be put in place to ensure the employee can be evacuated safely? Do I put a procedure in place with the use of an evacuation chair (or similar)? I cannot do a suitable &sufficient RA as the building has not been handed over to us yet but I am trying to get a head start and any advice/experience would be much appreciated! The issue of evacuating disabled persons is always a difficult one in that the solutions are not always easy. The fact that you are thinking about it now before you have moved is excellent. I think the first thing you must do is sit down with the employee and discuss it with him/her. You only have one floor to bring them down so this makes life a bit easier. The use of an evac chair sounds like your best solution but then you have to have people trained to us them and they have to be available at the time of an evacuation. Time is always a critical factor in an evacuation. Try and find out what, if any, detection system is installed. A decent detection system will buy you a bit of time. If it is addressable then you may be able to use the information to determine which exit route to use i.e. the furthest one away from the incident. Is there lobby protection to the stairs? This also can help in buying time as it delays fire spread to the stairwell. Have you looked in BS5588 part 8? It is a useful document and may be helpful.

Posted By Jim Walker Hi Booney, You seem to be suggesting your staff will run during evacuation? Can I suggest you note in your RA that some staff might be slow on stairs etc - this might be an idea for any RA as those normally athletic types might have twisted ankle or something. Then soon after you move in run a evac excercise (you ought to anyway)and see if this specific person does hinder the general evac. Maybe you could allocate him a buddy (plus reserves) ?

Posted By andymak If the lift is in a protected shaft such as running with a set of esacpe stairs, and has a secondary power supply to provide resillience. The lift can be used to evacuate mobility impaired personnel as long as suitable means are ensured of them not leaving the lift into a fire, and if the lift should fail personnel are on hand to wind the lift to a safe position. Evac chairs are also a good solution training is required but most also have instructions on them just in case they have to be used by non-trained personnel. Electric evacuation chairs are also available but are slow in descent, they also require the trained person to refresh themselves with teh operation every couple of months. Perhaps a refuge area could be created so the individual can wait until the main bulk of people have passed and then they can make their own way out with a 'buddy' there to assist if mobility is such that it is needed, this option takes the pressure off the individual as they do not feel that they are hindering others during the evacuation.

Posted By Phil Booney, I would run a trial evacuation first of all, and take the time from when the last "able bodied" person exits to your RVP, and the time when your physically impaired employee arrives at your RVP. I would hazard a guess that at least one or two of your other employees suffer from age related back problems (happens to a lot of us im afraid!) Evac chairs can be more trouble than their worth, and if your impaired employee walks from his car in the carpark to his place of work unaided every morning, i would say you dont have an issue. Please dont get me wrong, im not trying say that your employee in question isnt in pain some of the time and worthy of our extra consideration; but sometimes R.A's can go to the nth degree. Its also my philosiphy that we should send our guys home to their families in the same if not better condition than they left them at the breakfast table that morning. but sometimes common sense must prevail. Phil

Posted By shaun mckeever John, what makes you think the stairs will have one hour fire protection?

Posted By shaun mckeever They may only be half hour rated. But you must remember that the ratings are based on test conditions. When elements of structure are undergoing test to gain a fire rating the best quality workmanship goes into setting up the parts that are being tested. Even then it is not uncommon for them to fail several tests before eventually passing. The workmanship that goes into erecting a building often does not reflect that which went into the set up of the test pieces. And if the building has been in use for some time there is likely to be some degradation. Also the intensity of a fire may be more severe or less severe than those in test conditions. This why the ratings are just that - ratings. It does not mean the element of structure will hold up for the specified rating period.