EMERGENCY EVACUATIONS
WHO’S PEEPING?
Cameron Chalmers, Senior Trainer from Evac Chair International Ltd, talks Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans and tells us why they are so important when addressing the safety of your employees.
The identification of persons at specific risk should always be dealt with as part of an employers’ fire risk assessment as it is a criminal offence to deliberately place people at risk from fire and or smoke. With this in mind conducting Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPS) is a must to ensure all staff in your employ are suitably looked after.
People to take into account can be categorised in the following sections; employee, student, regular visitor, those receiving medical care and residential care users.
FIRST THINGS FIRST Firstly it must be established if a person requires assisted escape from the premises, if they are in a wheelchair or appear incapacitated to the extent that the stairs could be a physical barrier to their escape. There are a considerable number of persons
with hidden conditions that wouldn’t ordinarily appear to require any degree of assistance – but all of these need to be taken into account.
Research done by the UK Census found 1.9 % of the UK population uses a wheelchair, but less than 8% of disabled people are actually wheelchair users, such as those with heart conditions, angina, epilepsy, victims of stroke and other health or medical concerns.
Those that enter and exit the building via a lift will have to use the stairs in the case of an emergency; that may mean their escape is somewhat slower than others and much more likely to delay others that may be able to move far more quickly.
DIFFERENT STRATEGIES
FOR SAFETY There are a number of strategies that may make a substantial difference
to the outcome of your evacuation scenario. These include Phased Evacuation, Staged Evacuation or Progressive Horizontal Evacuation which can all be used and planned for in Emergency Evacuation situations.
Many buildings fall under the category of high risk, such as major retail stores with shelves full of volatile products. In these types of environments the level of urgency and speed of escalation of fire may be very high despite suppression systems, and there is the added complexity of dealing with the general public, some of whom won’t want to evacuate.
CRAFTING YOUR PEEP A considerable number of employers are now carrying out Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPS) on behalf of their disabled employees. Whilst these PEEPS are being comprehensively compiled in collaboration with the individual, it would appear from research that they are not being disseminated to those that require the information; presumably due to concern over breaching confidentiality legislation.
KEEP YOUR PEEPS
CLOSE TO YOUR CHEST As the PEEP is written on the basis of non-disclosure of personal information, there is no reason why evacuation chair operators shouldn’t have access to them. The relevant factors of the PEEP should be to inform the person for whom the PEEP is written of their responsibilities to cooperate; to indicate the actions that will provide for their escape; to establish what actions are required of the individual based upon their level of dependency; and to provide appropriate information to all concerned parties to enable them to carry out their duties in a time conscious manner.
www.evac-chair.co.uk www.tomorrowshs.com 37
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