TRAINING AND EDUCATION
PPL aims to create an environment where delegates can handle A fire damper practical demonstration in progress. all the major components they would encounter in a real building.
generated considerable interest from an informed audience – also touched on the levels of knowledge, experience, and expertise required by individuals such as a Trust’s Fire Safety Adviser and Fire Safety Manager, the ‘key steps’ for a thorough fire risk assessment – including identifying the hazards (for example ignition, fuel, and oxygen sources needed to be looked at, and accounted for), identifying the people at risk, evaluating the risks, and removing, reducing, and protecting against them, recording the actions taken, and then informing, instructing, and training the relevant staff, before reviewing all the actions taken. He also highlighted the wide range of personnel – from a Board-level director with overarching responsibility for fire safety in an NHS Trust, to part-time agency nursing or catering staff, who can all play a role in minimising fire risk in a healthcare facility, and emphasised the importance of an effective evacuation plan tailored to the condition of patients with differing levels of dependency. The day’s conference programme also included a look, by Alan Oliver of Golden Thread Fire, at fire-stopping and compartmentation, a lunchtime tour of PPL’s practical training facilities on the
York Business Park, a presentation at ‘Emergency lighting systems and total cost of ownership’ by Lee Halliday and Harry Russell of Eaton Electrical Systems (whose emergency lighting features in Unit 8 at PPL Training’s York base), and a detailed focus on ‘Ventilation and Fire and Smoke Dampers’ by Shaun Sutton of Air Projects.
Goals and ambitions in the role The day after the conference, I caught up with Richard Parker-Wood to find out what attracted him to the new role, and ask him about his plans and goals leading PPL Training’s fire safety training. He explained: “I was recruited last November, having previously spent 11 years with Humberside Fire and Rescue Service. I started my time there in the administration team at the Service’s Health and Safety Office, before progressing to become an Inspecting officer within the Technical Fire Safety area. After five years I was promoted to manage two teams – responsible for Business Safety and Technical Safety, covering two geographical areas within the region.” He continued: “I effectively started
at the bottom within the inspecting arena, visiting commercial premises, and assessing compliance with the Regulatory
Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. The role involved checking that building occupiers / owners were complying with the RRO, had undertaken ‘suitable and sufficient’ fire risk assessments, that their management of fire safety was sufficiently thorough, and that they had appropriate firefighting and fire detection equipment in place. In my early days I was visiting offices, hotels, shops, factories, and shopping centres.”
PPL emphasises the importance of regular fire door surveys. 34 Health Estate Journal January 2023
Management role As he progressed to a management role, he assumed responsibility for higher- risk and more complex facilities, such as larger shopping centres, sports stadia, and hospitals, giving him his first experience of the healthcare arena. He said: “As an Inspecting officer, I still dealt with GP practices and other smaller medical facilities, but as I built up my knowledge, I gained sufficient expertise to be able to effectively inspect large hospitals. Under the Regulatory Reform Order, the onus for fire safety compliance is on the Responsible Person. So, as an Inspecting officer going into a hospital, I would report back on my findings to, say, that individual at a Trust, whether via an informal or a formal notification, depending on the level of risk, and what we found. If there were sufficiently serious issues, there would be a possibility of enforcement notices, and, further down the line, a prohibition notice, which could mean closing off part or all of a building, or restricting its use. Fortunately, I never had to go down that route with a healthcare facility.” I asked who had been present in healthcare premises when fire safety meetings or site visits were conducted. Richard Parker-Wood said: “It was occasionally the Fire Safety Adviser, but in the NHS was mainly the Fire Safety manager / Fire Safety officer.” He went on to explain, in answer to my next question – on the level of experience Fire Safety managers in healthcare typically possess – that, ‘historically’, many such personnel were former Fire & Rescue Service personnel. However, this trend that had started to wane as his spell with the
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