A question if I may...... Discussion at work yesterday for evacuation of those with mobility issues. We have a procedure for creating evac plans for individuals. A senior member of staff says this is unnecessary and used hotels as an example, saying they don't give all disabled guests a plan. My question is this? Do hotels place all disabled access rooms on the ground level? If not, how do they deal with this issue?? Thanks

Not being familiar with hotels, but I can't see how doing PEEPs for guests would be practical given their short stay. It may not always be an option for those with mobility issues to be based on the ground floor. However given the fire controls in place i.e. smoke/heat detectors, fire extinguishers, sprinklers, etc, I would think emergency evacuations in hotels are very rare.

Originally Posted by: RayRapp

Not being familiar with hotels, but I can't see how doing PEEPs for guests would be practical given their short stay. It may not always be an option for those with mobility issues to be based on the ground floor. However given the fire controls in place i.e. smoke/heat detectors, fire extinguishers, sprinklers, etc, I would think emergency evacuations in hotels are very rare.

Ray,

You would hope so, but, alarm activation is an all out in hotels!

As I expereinced on cold night just last month in Edinburgh.

I was not impressed as it was the banging doors that woke me, not the fire alarm sounders!

It is a large international hotel chain, not a back street outfit, green signage, for those who are interested.

Apparently some idiot had set the detector off at an unpleasant hour with, wait for it, deoderant!

So the notices said the following morning.

Travelling on business I would say that my evacuation rate is about 1-2%, over my business travel during my career.

It was cold and wet last month, but, with my background, I knew, sad I know, where my nearest emergency exit was, so I went to that, no one else seemed to have used the real fire exits at the periphery of the building,, every other guest I observed leaving the hotel left via the main reception entrance, at the core of the complex, thus heading into the core of the building, before leaving to the exterior!

The last guest came out, with all his clothes & baggage, just after the FRS had made their first sweep!

I have to say though, the hotel had big buckets of space blankets outside for the guests to wrap up in if needed.

Aritcle 9 (1) FSO risk assessment The responsible person must make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks etc.(7)  The prescribed information is- (b) any group of persons indentified by the assessment as being especially at risk.

Once you have identified someone at risk you have a resonosiblity to ensure they can get out and you need to assess how this is managed. Ask your senior manager if he doesn't think it is required to put it in writing, leaving someone with a disabilty to thier own devices, or leaving them in a stairwell for the fire brigade is no longer accepted.

Hotels will assess if requred but the reason they do not have evacuations is it is not required as they have changing guests all the time so it would be pointless, they train the staff in the procedures. We do the same at our residential establishments especially for those for people with dementia it is pointless having the service users evacuate as 5 m inutes later quite often they do not know what has happened and I am not being flipant but it's a fact.

Senior managers like this will end up in court if anything happens then he will realise that he should of completed the task correctly in the first place.