Posted By A Cathro I work within a College of Further Education. We have a number of campuses with one having nine floors. There are an increasing number of students with a variety of disabilities joining our courses and it is not always practical to have them located on the ground floor. We are having a bit of a debate just now as to who is responsible for their evactuation or for staying with them at our refuge points in the event of an emergency. Can anyone advise. Thanks, Andy

Posted By joe black Andy, I have been working on this very issue, and yesterday had a meeting with the fire service. As rightly said, it is the college's responsibility to evacuate. Safe refuge is a suitable temporary refuge station whilst non mobility impaired persons are evacuated. The mobility impaired persons at safe refuge MUST be accompanied by the Fire Marshall. Once the non mobility impaired persons are evacuated, the mobility impaired persons must have their evacuation facilitated. The way to ensure that this is possible is this; Have an evacuation plan for each building. Complete an individual evacuation plan for all persons with impaired mobility, in discussion with them and the Fire Marshal, so that all parties are in agreement as to how the evacuation would be best actioned. Remember it is not only persons with disabilities who are mobility impaired, it could be heavily pregnant persons, those with a broken limb, older persons, the list is endless. Formulate your plans, then you can rest assures that your staff/ students are safe, and you will also be DDA compliant. Joe.

Posted By Chris Matthews I had this conversation with the fire inspector regarding one of our staff last year, and was informed that as far as refuge points were concerned, they are there only to temporarily situate a person with a disability or mobility issues whilst the bulk evacuation is carried out. The individual and chaperone must then be evacuated by ourselves using volunteers trained in the use of an evac chair (and manual handling etc, we erred away from using wardens/marshalls as they already had a role to play throughout the evacuation. Apparently this can vary around the country so you should seek advice from the fire service, my situation was within Norfolk by the way. Regards Chris

Posted By Martin Harney Some very interesting points here regarding a topic I’m sure many of us have come across. Nothing is simple in life and there are inconsistencies in approaches from different fire authorities, local authorities etc. I don’t wish to muddy the waters even further but I would appreciate any constructive comments on the following scenario, please consider it from a risk assessment perspective – ‘reasonable practicability’/’cost against risk’. A Library has a Ground Floor and First Floor. First Floor has refuge areas. The level of usage of the First Floor by users with mobility problems was measured over a given period of time. The survey showed that the volume of users with mobility problems who were upstairs at any given time was very low; never more than 3 people and most of the time either 1 or 0. Currently the evacuation procedure is to make every effort to help impaired mobility users out of the building and, if they did have to be left in the refuge areas, they would be accompanied by a member of staff until the Fire & Rescue Service arrived on site. Estimated time for the Fire Brigade to attend is around 5 minutes (Fully aware that the Fire Brigade might be on strike, could be delayed; cognisant of BS 5588 Part 8 etc.). DDA assessment recommended Evac chair (or similar). Cost of an Evac chair is around £650. At least two would be required. Because of shift work a large number of staff would have to be trained to use the chair, so that there was always someone available who knew how to use it. Training would have to be on a voluntary basis, dependent on staff goodwill. Obviously there would be costs incurred for maintenance and training. There could be other issues e.g. someone with impaired mobility may refuse to get into the Evac chair; Evac chairs may not be suitable for all disabled persons e.g. those with brittle bones or neck injuries; another local authority has apparently had staff absent from work due to back injuries sustained whilst handling Evac chairs – these members of staff had supposedly received training in their use. I am not ‘anti’ Evac chairs as such, they may be the chosen option at some stage, but they are not the panacea for all ills. The risk assessment is about to be reviewed ……………… What would YOU advise?

Posted By A Cathro Hi, Thanks to all who posted a response. Meeting this week on the issue. Andy