Posted By Dave B
Anyone solved similar problem please?

We manage several leisure centres, swimming pools, gymnasiums, sports centres, cultural venues etc where disabled persons attend for leisure activities.
There is no requirement for disabled persons to give notice of the intention to visit the centres so management have no idea how many will attend at any time (although some block bookings are pre-arranged).

Some facilities offer group educational visits to disabled persons.

Our facilities are on the first or second floors in some instances and all have passenger lifts (non-fire rated) to all floors.

As a result of the new Fire Reform Act we have reviewed our fire risk assessments and emergency evacuation procedures and are faced with the following problem.

To comply with DDA we must make reasonable adjustments to ensure disabled people are not disadvantaged (in our case access and egress)but to comply with the Fire Reform Act we must have procedures in place to evacuate all persons without depending on the FRS.

Our local FRS advises that persons should not re-enter a building where there is a fire so staff evacuating a disabled person could not go back into the building to evacuate someone else. Given the need for two trained members to evacuate each disabled person (to transfer them into a evac-chair or similar and to get them down stairs) can we be reasonably expected to staff up to cater for the possibility of more than one or two disabled persons wishing to use the facility. How many evac-chairs or similar are we expected to have on site. Although we do put limits on the number of disabled allowed to use the facilities at any one time, in the case of emergency, most staff will need to be involved in the evacuation of able bodied persons and those with reduced mobility.

Our fire risk assessments indicate these are low risk building during the hours of opening. Some have safe refuges where disabled persons could have a degree of safety until evacuation can be completed.

Finally, to be able to provide adequate evacuation staffing levels we would have to be given a minimum of 24 hours notice of intention of attendance by a wheelchair user. In the case where they just felt like a ten minute splash in the pool or a gym session I don't think that would work.

I think know what the laws requires (restrict access to only those that you know you can get out safely) but where does reasonableness come into the equation?

Anyone gone down this route?

Our FRS are non-committal to say the least

All advise/suggestions gratefully received.

Posted By Dave B
Thanks for that, Rob

Unfortunately facilities cannot be relocated to the ground floor - gymnasiums, activity viewing areas, art gallery displays etc.

Can get disabled to safe refuges in some cases but still need procedures to get them all out.

Cannot prearrange casual users/visitors of the facilities - they just turn up.

No problem with egress from the ground floor, only upper floors.

Good idea about using user group to trial evacuation but have concerns about actually evacuating members of staff or disabled persons down stairs in an emergency scenario in case of accident or manual handling incident. However, if we don't how are we going to identify any failings in the procedure?

Not meaning to be negative but searching for a solution

Dave

Posted By shaun mckeever
Dave

The difficulties for evacuating disabled persons is not unique to your nature of business and it is not one that is easily solved. I think you must consider your strategy before any fire begins such as management of fire safety in your leisure centres, particularly staff training. I am sure you have done this but I raise it because it was the total failure of management procedures that caused the multiple fatalities at the Mayfield leisure centre in NI. What strategy have you come to with fire detection? I would suggest a detection system that has a pre-alarm facility. This should not cause an alarm in the building but alerts staff to the possibility of a fire and allows time for investigation. At this point, while the pre-alarm is being investigated, you should begin the first stage evacuation of disabled occupants by removing them to a place of relative safety. At least by doing this you have begun the process before the fire alarm operates. Where possible try to achieve progressive horizontal evacuation i.e. place as many fire doors/walls between the fire and the person(s) being evacuated before moving downstairs. This is how hospitals and some elederly persons homes manage it.

Don't forget fires do not develop explosively in most situations so you use your knowledge of fires and determine what the safe evacuation time is and use the ASET/RSET model to develop your strategy.

Don't forget, the law (which existed long before the recent changes) requires you to have a procedure in place, not that it be complete by the time the fire service arrive. Whilst depending on the attendance of the fire service must not be part of your strategy they will take over once they have arrived and they will assist in completing the evacuation. Their operations will be designed to ensure fire/smoke does not spread in the direction of occuoants still in the building.