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Morning all..........I am stuck so needing your input. We are moving soon to a multi occupancy building - We will be on the 2nd and 3rd floor. Since Hybrid working (post covid) it is now tricky to ensure we have enough people on site who can A) operate an evac chair and B) finding willing volunteers to ensure we have enough cover. Personally I do not like evac chairs but I cannot think of anything else that is suitable to evacuate wheelchair users and those less mobile in the event of an evacuation. We wil have refuge points but we still need to have plans in place to safely evacuate after the 'rush' So my question is this - How do you manage this in a hybrid world with no willing volunteers, and not being able to force those trained to be on site full time Go.............
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Ok so this may sound harsh, however I would leave them in the refuge point and let the Fire Brigade get them out.
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That's not just harsh, it is unacceptable and a dereliction of your legal responsibilities.
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Originally Posted by: MrBrightside  I would leave them in the refuge point and let the Fire Brigade get them
Think a few unknowns may need consideration before adoting that approach: 1) Is there actually a local station? 2) Can it respond in a timely manner? 3) Are there other commitments that could impact attendance - local moors, airport, motorway network, major venues, distribution centre/warehousing, industrial estates, chemical plant?
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Rank: Super forum user
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Originally Posted by: MrBrightside I would leave them in the refuge point and let the Fire Brigade get them
Think a few unknowns may need consideration before adoting that approach: 1) Is there actually a local station? 2) Can it respond in a timely manner? 3) Are there other commitments that could impact attendance - local moors, airport, motorway network, major venues, distribution centre/warehousing, industrial estates, chemical plant?
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Originally Posted by: MrBrightside Ok so this may sound harsh, however I would leave them in the refuge point and let the Fire Brigade get them out.
This is not legally acceptable. It is the responsibility of the Responsible Person to ensure people are evacuated in a timely manner. The official guidance makes it very clear that you can't leave people in Refuges and await the emergency services to undertake the rescue. The actual bottom line is you may have to put restrictions on the people who need assistance to evacuate in terms of when they can attend the office. This will have to be limited to the times when someone is available to assist them. If no one is available, then they will have to work from home. Clearly, this means you need people willing to be trained to fulfil this role, and also that 'office working' is planned in advance for those people affected by it. If no one is willing to be trained, then you may, in extreme circumstances have to consider the employment status of those individuals if attendance at the office is compulsory - even if this is only periodically. Now that really is really harsh!!! This may seem like discrimination against mobility-impaired people - and it is! However, it is legally acceptable as Health, Safety and Fire legal requirements take legal precedence over all discrimination legislation. In effect, you are discriminating against them, to protect them to acceptable levels. Tony.
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 1 user thanked antbruce001 for this useful post.
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Originally Posted by: Roundtuit Originally Posted by: MrBrightside I would leave them in the refuge point and let the Fire Brigade get them
Think a few unknowns may need consideration before adoting that approach: 1) Is there actually a local station? 2) Can it respond in a timely manner? 3) Are there other commitments that could impact attendance - local moors, airport, motorway network, major venues, distribution centre/warehousing, industrial estates, chemical plant?
We will be very fortunate in that the station is a few hundred yards down the road - so no impact of delay
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Originally Posted by: Mel in Sussex How do you manage this in a hybrid world with no willing volunteers, and not being able to force those trained to be on site full time
If you have no actual volunteers, the normal way a business persuades people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do if left to their own devices is to pay them money.
It comes up periodically here. My recollection is that about a third of respondents indicate that their business does pay something (cash or some other perk) to first aiders, fire wardens and similar role-holders.
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1 user thanked achrn for this useful post.
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The local station is just over the road - unfortunately its crew were fighting a moor fire when our alarm went off
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Rank: Super forum user
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The local station is just over the road - unfortunately its crew were fighting a moor fire when our alarm went off
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Originally Posted by: antbruce001 Originally Posted by: MrBrightside Ok so this may sound harsh, however I would leave them in the refuge point and let the Fire Brigade get them out.
This is not legally acceptable. It is the responsibility of the Responsible Person to ensure people are evacuated in a timely manner. The official guidance makes it very clear that you can't leave people in Refuges and await the emergency services to undertake the rescue. The actual bottom line is you may have to put restrictions on the people who need assistance to evacuate in terms of when they can attend the office. This will have to be limited to the times when someone is available to assist them. If no one is available, then they will have to work from home. Clearly, this means you need people willing to be trained to fulfil this role, and also that 'office working' is planned in advance for those people affected by it. If no one is willing to be trained, then you may, in extreme circumstances have to consider the employment status of those individuals if attendance at the office is compulsory - even if this is only periodically. Now that really is really harsh!!! This may seem like discrimination against mobility-impaired people - and it is! However, it is legally acceptable as Health, Safety and Fire legal requirements take legal precedence over all discrimination legislation. In effect, you are discriminating against them, to protect them to acceptable levels. Tony.
Thanks Tony that does give me food for thought. Hybrid working has made fire safety quite tricky! Legislation and guidance needs to catch up and quickly The easiest way, I think, based on this would be to evac chair train buddies and only allow them in as a team - however that needs the buddies buy in......and round the circle goes....
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I agree with the suggestion of Achrn. In this modern world of brainwashed consumerism, extra pay in someones wage slip is probably the best leverage you potentially have. It is all well and good to try and buddy up and only have certain memebers of staff in when the vulnerable ones are in but many factors could impact that situation so you'd still find yourself without an evac chair buddy to help. If fire safety is a concern, quite rightly due to multi occupancy (although others occupying a building have a legal duty to cooperate and inform you of their fire protection meassures and vice versa) can you be sure that your teams, and those not in your employ will not start a fire? How is the disabled person getting up past the first floor to start their working day? What if the lifts are out of order? Who is trained to help in that scenario, or do you even have volunteers who are willing to put their own health at risk trying to move a person vertically upwards through a building. If all avenues are exhausted then the last resort is termination - now that is harsh.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Fire evacuation is of course the last resort and before we all get to hung up about it we need to establish a) what is the risk of a fire breaking out and b) what is the risk of the fire spreading? Only when you have these fully controlled do we worry about evacuation. In any decently designed and maintained building the odds of a fire breaking out should be low. Reasons for my complacency are: - Smoking is banned in all buildings: ok done for health rather than fire reasons but people are not going to go off to the stationary closet for a smoke or leaving a burning fag in the staff room ash tray anymore.
- You electrics are regularly checked and not abused
- There should be a comprehensive fire detection system throughout the building so you should have plenty of warning if a fire does breakout
- The building should be compartmentalised so fire can only spread through the building giving the fire brigade plenty of time to attack the centre of the fire before it spreads. It also means that it becomes easier to organise the evacuation of mobility impaired individuals
Of course you need to be certain that all of this is in place and actually working. You may need to talk to your landlord and establish just how fire safe the building is( the question nobody actually asked at Grenfell). I don’t think that Mr Brightside is being harsh, I am guessing he is saying, do need to worry that much about evacuation if every else is in place. There are people in the fire safety game who seem to base their arguments on the assumption that the buildings we inhabit are made tissue paper soaked in petrol and we need to get everybody out in minutes. In the real world in many places the evacuation advice is based around “stay put” or a phased evacuation, where those who can get out quickly do so and those who have difficulties can do so more slowly. Many mobility impaired people will in extremis be able to make their own way down the stairs, without recourse to an evac chair, just a bit of support from a buddy. And of course some people with severe mobile difficulties might not be able to use an evac chair at all. I can’t imagine an employment tribunal looking kindly on an employer who decides to sack an employee because they can’t evacuate them safely down the stairs.
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Of course the actual probability of a fire within the building should be very low. But this has no impact on the need for suitable emergency plans! As part of any suitable fire risk assessment, the assessor is required to assess the suitability of the Evacuation Arrangments and any PEEPs in place. If the approach is to leave people in a Refuge and await rescue by the emergency services then this would be marked as 'unsatisfactory' and require corrective action. No competent fire risk assessor would try and justify this approach based on risk assessment principles as the guidance is so specific. The 'stay put' system is a bad example and a red herring in this discussion. The whole 'stay put' approach is based on the fundamental design of the building and cannot just be imposed on an existing building. Office blocks are simply not designed for this type of approach. Tony.
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