EMERGENCY LIGHTING
Seven key considerations for choosing a system
Ian Hill, Emergency Lighting Business manager at leading life safety system and equipment manufacturer, Hochiki Europe, highlights what he dubs ‘seven key considerations’ for choosing a hospital emergency lighting system.
Emergency situations in hospitals or healthcare sites, where an evacuation of immobile and high dependency patients is required, come with huge complexities, especially as evacuation must happen as quickly and safely as possible. As recommended in BS5266-1:2016 Code of practice for the emergency lighting of premises, and as per the Department for Communities and Local Government’s Fire Safety Risk Assessment: Healthcare Premises guide, ‘People in your premises must be able to find their way to a place of total safety if there is a fire by using escape routes that have enough lighting.’ In hospital buildings it is important to remember that it must also be possible to see and use escape routes that may not normally be illuminated, such as external escape routes or long internal corridors using emergency lighting. There is also a
legal responsibility for hospitals and NHS Trusts to ensure that emergency lighting systems are maintained in accordance with the statutory requirements they are subject to.
Elements you may not have considered
There are many things to consider when choosing an emergency lighting system, and some that you may not even have considered. For example, is it possible to meet your hospital’s ‘green’ targets while simultaneously running an efficient implementation project alongside maintaining patient care and privacy? What about the ongoing maintenance costs of the fire safety system, and of course the need to choose a system which provides safe and swift evacuation. In this article I will look to cover some
of the key considerations when selecting an emergency lighting system for a hospital.
1: Cost-effective implementation For consulting engineers and contractors ease of implementation is key if life safety equipment installation projects are to be efficiently run. Most automatic testing systems require mains power cabling and data cabling, or a mains power and wireless interface. FIREscape from Hochiki, a fully monitored, self-testing emergency lighting system with addressable devices, is unique in that the panel is connected to the mains power to monitor for failure; however the cabling that runs between devices is extra low voltage (40V). As a result the majority of the system installation and maintenance does not need to be carried out by a
FIREscape is a fully monitored, self-testing emergency lighting system with ‘intelligent’ addressable devices.
October 2021 Health Estate Journal 61
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