FIRE SAFETY
such as electronic patient record stores, server rooms, and the wider clinical and non-clinical environment.” Other ‘strategic objectives’, he noted, might include reducing the number and frequency of false fire alarms.
Governance and investment He continued: “Of course any effective healthcare, or indeed other fire safety policy or plan, needs to set out how all of this can be facilitated. In very broad terms,” he continued, “that’s all about governance and investment, while at a high level, we need to set out how those objectives will be implemented. So, we need to think about a defined management structure, and developing and implementing appropriate protocols and procedures to mitigate those risks. We must comply with relevant legislation – principally the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order, and the policy and plan may also – for instance – entail developing and disseminating emergency action plans to ensure occupants’ safety.” Andrew Foolkes added that it was also vital to implement ‘some degree of monitoring’ – whether via a periodic review of fire and false alarm incident reports, fire safety training records, audit reports, or periodic third-party fire safety audits themselves. “In this context,” he explained, “a fire safety management system is essentially the framework of protocols and processes used to ensure that an organisation can fulfil the tasks required that are set out in the fire safety policy document.”
What does a Fire Safety Plan look like? Turning to ‘What does a Fire Safety Plan look like?’, the speaker showed a slide of a diagram from Appendix B of Health Technical Memorandum (HTM) 05-01, Managing healthcare fire safety (see Figure 1), which, as he put it, sets out ‘where you would expect a fire safety framework to hang together, and the various components’. He said: “It also talks about the concept of ‘Plan, Do, Check, and Act’, which you can see highlighted. So, at very high level, the fire safety policy we have talked about is where Boards, partners, or the equivalent controlling body, are responsible for setting the policy, i.e. ‘What are we trying to achieve?’ Then – as you can see – we need also to plan its implementation, so we need to know what the structure needs to look like to be able to achieve that objective, and the protocols that need to be in place.” Andrew Foolkes said he would now
focus on the roles within fire safety of various individuals within an NHS Trust, and how they would fit into this Fire Safety Management Framework. He explained: “In very general terms, the planning and establishment of these protocols would
be the task of the CEO and the Board Director responsible for fire safety. The Fire Safety Manager and Fire Safety Adviser would be part of the team operating this fire safety policy, introducing the processes and procedures necessary to deliver what has been planned.” He continued: “It’s also important to check to ensure that we’re doing what we say we’re doing, via regular monitoring and reviewing.”
The role of fire safety audits and records This, he said, was where fire safety audits, records, and management, came in – confirming that, for example, where a Trust or Health Board had set out that it would deliver a fire emergency evacuation plan and regular fire drills, it was actually doing so. Andrew Foolkes said: “The same goes for regular fire safety training – are we doing it regularly, and after we’ve reviewed and monitored to see that we are doing it, do we need to feed back to the Board and management? Equally,” he continued, “based on the results of the review, do we need to do anything different, such as taking corrective action, or reappraising the scope of our Fire Safety Management
system, and does the Board need to make greater resources available – in terms of money, staff, or training?” In Tenos’s experience, there was a danger that all of these duties could ‘land on one person’s desk’. He said: “In terms of an appropriate structure for all of this, HTM 05-01 again includes an example of a Fire Safety Management Structure for a typical NHS Trust.” (see Figure 2).
An example structure Showing this in a slide, he said: “You can see that at the very top you have the Trust Board and CEO, and then an Executive Director allocated responsibility for fire safety, and thus also for planning to ensure that the organisation is establishing the fire safety objectives and planning how those will be delivered.” The Fire Safety Manager – normally a senior operating manager within the organisation – will also have responsibility for the planning process. He continued: “Branched off from this are other staff that will help this Fire Safety Manager deliver their services – such as the Fire Safety Adviser – an Authorised Person (Fire), and a Competent Person (Fire), who can provide skills and
Board, partners or equivalent controlling body Fire Safety Policy
Corrective Action / Improvement
ACT Monitoring
Operational Management
Management Structure PLAN Assessments
Fire Emergency Action Plans
DO Fire Safety Training Management Audits CHECK Fire Safety Audit
Figure 1: A Fire Safety Management Framework, from HTM 05-01, 2nd edition: 2013 – Managing healthcare fire safety – Appendix B.
February 2022 Health Estate Journal 45 Records and Fire Risk
Fire Safety Improvement Action Plans
Review
Fire Drills / Action Plan Rehearsals
Records and Management Audits
Fire Safety Roles & Responsibilities
Fire Safety Protocols
Corrective Action / Improvement
Fire Safety
Corrective Action / Improvement
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
