Posted By Rach G We have employed someone who is in a wheelchair. When it was discussed with him how he would like to evacuate the building in the event of an emergency, he said he would like to evacuate in his wheelchair. This presents us with an issue as he is on the second floor of the building. He does not wish to use the evacuation chair and the lift does not have a separate power supply and is not a fire fighting lift. According to the the governments guidance: Fire safety risk assessment: Means of Escape for Disabled people (Supplementary guide (page 34)) it is possible to evacuate a disabled person in their wheelchair. Apparently, there are a number of techniques available using 2, 3 or 4 people although this does of course require a manual handling assessment to be done and a suitable team of people to be trained to take the person in the wheelchair out safely. I am, however, struggling to find an organisation which offer this type of training or guidance on the techniques used to move the wheelchair. Can anyone offer me any guidance on this or detail on any organisation who may be able to assist please? Thank you in anticipation.

Posted By Bryan Goldsmith 16052 You have possibly already considered locating the persons workplace on the ground floor. Other options include to consider setting up a 'Safe Refuge'. You would need some one competent on the buildings structure from the building regs angle to assist in deciding on this. A certain amount of work in terms of Fire door upgrades and door release units linked to the fire alarm may be considered. allocate a 'buddy' to stay with the person and also to ensure that muster at assembly point highlights the fact that someone is still in the building and where. Revisit your fire risk assessment and reduce the potential fire load as well as upgrade detection systems etc. Hope this gives you some ideas to follow. good luck Bryan

Posted By Philip Beale I see no reason not to ecauate with the person in their wheelchair carry out a manual handling risk assessment. i know some people don't feel happy in the evacuation chair what are his concerns can they be addressed by practice with an evac chair. Or as others have said a refuge area and only need to evacuate if it a confirmed fire. not sure leaving the person to the fire brigade as this is the employers responsibility to get all staff out of the building safely. reminds me of the sketch in the programme "the office" where they leave the disable girl on the landing of a flight of stairs as it was only a fire practice. Phil

Posted By Edward Shyer Hi Rach, This is a difficult situation as you will know by the mixed responses. Firstly may I say that it is the employers responsibility to ensure the safe evacuation of ALL employees in the event of an emergency evacuation. So the comments from people about placing a person in a "safe refuge" area is a none starter. Think about your able bodied people would this be an acceptable proposition as an acceptable solution to the the evacuation procedure?.Also why should someone who is wheelchair bound be moved to the ground floor, is this not discrimination under DDA Then you can look at the generation of the PEEP. It is a known fact that evac chairs can and do cause problems with the stability of carrying someone out of buildings. This is mainly due to the fact that not many employers spend time and effort to practice the use of these chairs ( how many people can honestly state that during a fire drill that their disabled employees are evacuated in accordance with the PEEP). There are many items on the market that are available as an alternative to the evac chair to aid the evacuation of a disabled person. A quick GOOGLE search will bring up these. You have said that the individual has stated that they would prefer to be evacuated with the wheelchair have you asked them if they have had any previous experiences with regards to being evacuated while using the wheelchair and if so how was this accomplished. One thing that is usually forgotten is that the disabled person is probably the best person to ask for a solution?? Finally if you wish you can always say that the employee must get into the evac chair because H&S legislation takes precedent. BUT we don't want to do this do we!!! Regards Ted

Posted By Bob Shillabeer To say a refuge is a watse of time is completely wrong. Most fires are detected well before it become a crisis thus allowing time to make a safe evacuation possible. Where a disabled person is involved you locate to a refuge which should give a much longer safe time thus allowing those trained in such evacuations ample time to assist those concerned to evacuate safely the building involved. There is always the risk that disabled people may be forgotten but with competent evacuation marshals this should not arise. If you have a large number of disabled persons working for an organisation then you will need to speak with the fire service to arrive at a safe system for evacuation, this would make the premises special, and as you must always comply with the RRFSO the fire brigade will always be willing to assist in developing a robust plan with you.

Posted By Edward Shyer to advise "leaving the person in a designated safe refuge and allow the fire brigade to undertake the evacuation." is completely wrong. It is NOT the fire services responsibility to evacuate this is the employers responsibility and should form part of the PEEP. The refuge area should only be used as a last resort. Regards Ted

Posted By Bob Shillabeer Sorry Ted, it is you who is wrong. Safe refuges are an acceptable way of preventing injury from fire. The fire brigade are the people specially trained to assist with disabled people who are not able to make a safe exit from a building. They prefer not to have this task to worry about and will make a judgement if an evacuation is actually needed. They will asses the situation very quickly and react in a proportionate way, by posibly leaving the person in a relative secure location while they tackle the fire. The reson why an evacuation is undertaken at all is in case the fire causes injury to anyone in the building. The fire service will laways ensure where necesary that all people are accounted for so they then have a safe environment to tackle the fire or if the fire is to great to ensure it does not affect any other buildings. Remember the fire service is now more about protecting life than protecting buildings.

Posted By shaun mckeever I've been reading this thread with interest but I can't ignore your statement Bob. Speaking as an ex fire officer it is not the responsibility of the fire service to undertake the evacuation of disabled persons. It is the responsibility of the fire brigade to carry out rescue of trapped persons or persons in danger which your disabled person will be if you leave them in the refuge. Would you really leave someone in a burning building not knowing how long it will be before the fire service turn up? Anything can happen en route to an incident that will cause a delayed attendance. Do you not think that the first appliance to turn up will have their hands full without having to commit crews to carry out evacuations that should have been carried before they arrived? Often the first appliance to turn up may only have a crew of four of which only two will be able to be committed to the fire or rescue. Your emergency plan must not rely on the attendance of the fire brigade.

Posted By Clive Buckley Sorry M Forbes but I cannot agree with what you say about "safe refuges". In our organisation (thousands of employees in hundreds of buildings), whereas we used to leave disabled staff in refuges with "buddies", following the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order we no longer consider this as acceptable, although such staff can stay there temporarily until all other staff have evacuated by that particular route. Consequently all disabled staff must have a Personal Evacuation Plan and must be evacuated irrespective of whether any alarm is "for real" or not - we assume all alarms are "for real". We have sufficient staff trained in the use of manual and electrically-operated evacuation chairs and refresher training is given at regular intervals. Locating staff on the ground floor is rarely an option as (a) they are therefore away from their team colleagues, which is unacceptable and (b) in many of our buildings we do not occupy the ground floor. To summarise - safe refuge, no - evacuate, yes. Always.