TRAINING AND EDUCATION


all buildings with seven or more storeys, or that are 18 metres or higher, and either have at least two residential units, or are hospitals or care homes (during design and construction). Also new under the Act is a National Construction Products Regulator (NRCP), who will ‘oversee a more effective construction products regulatory regime, and lead and co-ordinate market surveillance and enforcement in this sector across the UK’.


Examples of inadequate fire-stopping.


but currently, for example, we’re offering a one-day Fire Safety Responsible Person Introduction course, with one version specifically for healthcare, and a second for the commercial world. We also offer a one-day Fire Door Survey and Inspection course, which we see as relevant both to Estates & Facilities personnel responsible for fire door maintenance, and heads of department in, say, an acute or district hospital, as well as fire wardens involved in fire safety checks.” Richard Parker-Wood said that while fire doors weren’t – in his experience – intentionally neglected in healthcare premises, especially given the number of them in some large hospitals, ‘people just probably take them for granted’.


He elaborated: “To the uninitiated a


fire door is just a way in and way out of a building, whereas those more educated on their function know they are a form of fire engineering, and integral to an effective fire compartment. Fire doors may also require smoke-stopping capabilities depending on their location and the inherent risk, which is down to the engineering of the hardware. These capabilities and, for example, 30 or 60-minute fire resistance, are designed and manufactured in in the factory. “Many of the problems with fire doors in healthcare settings,” he continued, “are a result of the impact damage they suffer from trolleys, beds, and people walking into them. People in such environments tend to use beds or anything of that nature to open the doors, rather than opening them first and then taking the bed or trolley through. Fire doors thus need to be designed with features such as edge protection to protect them, especially in high traffic areas.”


36 Health Estate Journal January 2023


Fire and smoke damper courses Another fire safety course PPL Training offers is on Fire and Smoke Damper Inspection; it focuses – among other areas – on ensuring that such devices – whose correct operation is key to preventing fire and smoke spread through a building’s ventilation system – are functioning correctly. The fire safety training area includes ceilings where fire dampers above access panels are almost hidden behind other M&E services, simulating the access challenges some healthcare engineers maintaining such devices will encounter. There is also a one-day Fire Stopping


Survey & Inspection course, and a three- day Fire Safety Technical Awareness course, which Richard Parker-Wood explained would give an excellent grounding to those who had perhaps just been given responsibility for fire safety, but had little prior knowledge or expertise. As part of this course, delegates would not only learn about fire-stopping, fire doors, compartmentation, and fire and smoke dampers, but also about associated areas such as emergency and escape lighting and fire alarms.


Updating of guidance and legislation Our discussion next moved to the updating of current fire safety legislation and guidance. Richard Parker-Wood noted in particular that the Building Safety Act, which gained Royal Assent on 28 April 2022, introduced a new Building Safety Regulator (BSR), to oversee the safety and performance of all buildings, with a special focus on high-rise buildings, and whose job it will be ‘to promote competence and organisational capability within the sector, including for building control professionals and tradespeople’. The BSR will regulate


Clear lines of responsibility The Act also stipulates that ‘Dutyholders’ such as the Principal Designer and Principal Contractor will be required to manage building safety risks, ‘with clear lines of responsibility during the design, construction, and completion, of all buildings’, while ‘Accountable Persons’ will need to demonstrate that they have ‘effective, proportionate measures in place to manage building safety risks in the higher-risk buildings for which they are responsible’. Those failing to meet their obligations may face criminal charges. Richard Parker-Wood added: “The Regulatory Reform Order 2005 is also being strengthened, with greater emphasis on the roles of the Responsible and Accountable Persons.” For residential premises in a higher-risk building (defined as a building in England that is at least 18 metres in height, or with at least seven storeys and containing at least two residential units), ‘RPs’ will be required to ‘take reasonable steps to ascertain if there is an Accountable Person in relation to the premises, and co-operate with them to enable them to carry out their duties under the Building Safety Bill’. The strengthening of the RRO will take account of the findings of the fire safety failings that contributed to the Grenfell Tower fire.


‘More important than ever’ My interviewee said as our discussion ended: “Our view at PPL Training is that it is now more important than ever to get the fire safety message out there – particularly in a high-risk environment such as healthcare, and the range of fire safety training courses we offer will not only reflect this, but will also evolve on an ongoing basis to ensure that we take into account changing legislation and guidance. Since we launched our first fire safety training courses last April, demand and interest in them has been high, and the likelihood for this year is that we will offer a combination of one and three-day courses on a six-weekly cycle to ensure that we can provide the right training to those who need it in this key area for healthcare personnel. The facilities we have here and in Slough will enable us to offer an unrivalled mix of classroom and practical training on all aspects of fire safety at a time when the focus on it has never been stronger.”


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