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Posted By Ian Horsman
We have a number of sites which are above ground floor. Within these sites we operate medical examinations for members of the public. As a result, we do receive members of the public with disabilities. The issue is , at some sites we have difficulty in determining the evacuation process and in some cases it has been identified that we cannot safely evacuate. Opinions would be welcome regarding the conflict between allowing people onto the premises in-line with the DDA Act but also knowing that they cannot be safely evacuated. Is one solution to prohibit entry to anyone who cannot safely walk down stairs unaided?
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Posted By anon1234
Surely the starting point is supposed to be can you modify the existing arrangements to allow safe access and egress for the disabled in an emergency.
This may mean considering the need for greter degrees of fire resistance to allow for longer assisted evacuations of these persons or simply modifying the access / egress facilities - clearly the best solution would be dependant on the buildings existing design and then doing what is reasonably practicable.
Obviously what you can't have is a situation where in an emergency you cannot evacuate the disabled persons safely
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Posted By garyh
Are you controlling the entire buidling or just part of it? If you have a "landlord" - what are they doing?
I understand that you have to have a place of refuge (eg a protected stairwell or other safe place) for wheelchair users etc - however note that not all disabled people are unable to move!!
You then "buddy" them with soemone, who stays with them and in contact with the emergency co-ordinator who alerts the fire brigade to their location.
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Posted By Maggie Atterbury
The Fire Brigade will not allow you to depend on them to evacuate a disabled person from a refuge now. Companies must make their own arrangements. We have invested in Paraid Evacuation Chairs in every stair well and on every floor. These are chairs on caterpillar tracks, which staff can be trained to use, which carry those with mobility problems down stairs.
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Posted By Ian Horsman
We have a potential issue that either staff are unwilling to be trained in the use of an evac chair or they themselves are physically unable to use an evac chair. These buildings are sometimes only manned by 1 doctor and 1 receptionist.
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Posted By Ken Taylor
If they are able to walk up the stairs, presumably they are also able to walk down - so the issues seem to be: how long this would take; and whether you can provide assistance if necessary. The fire risk assessments should, therefore, take into account: travel distances; fire-protection of escape routes; any available alternative routes; fire doors providing extra time to escape; whether areas of fire risk open onto escape routes; etc. You may well find that ambulant disabled clients are able to escape in an acceptable time - whereas it seems that non-ambulant persons are not able to use your facilities anyway and their discrimination may be reasonable if reasonable adjustments cannot be made to afford them access.
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Posted By shaun mckeever
Gary
I think your approach is wrong. You must not rely on the attendance of the fire brigade to evacuate disabled persons. This has been a common misunderstanding for many years. It has never been the procedure. The procedure has always been a management responsibility for the safe evacuation of disabled occupants. Admittedly this has not been helped by well meaning firefighters from local fire stations who have often said that they will get them out.
The answer given by Ken is probably as good as you will be able to get. As always it is difficult to give a precise answer when there is limited information. Progressive Horizontal Evacuation (PHE) is another method that may be adopted but this would depend on the size and layout of the building. The idea would be to move disabled occupants horizontally beyond fire resisting separation before attempting to move them down the building. This is the type used in hospitals.
The use of lifts may be appropriate if the lifts are designed as firefighting or evacuation lifts.
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