EMERGENCY LIGHTING
Sligo University Hospital – where Masterfire Life Safety Systems chose Hochiki Europe to provide a complete life safety solution to protect the facility and its patients.
qualified electrical engineer, which can substantially reduce labour costs. This makes the system far more cost-effective and easy to install.
2: Reduced cost of ownership The cost of a total fire safety system overhaul can run into hundreds, if not thousands or millions of pounds, depending on the scale of the project. Choosing a system which has been designed to reduce total cost of ownership will thus keep budgets in check and help preserve vital funds. A system which uses extra low voltage cabling – as previously mentioned, and offers central monitoring, simple installation, and hassle-free maintenance, reduces labour costs, plus, if you choose a system which utilises LED luminaires, this will help your hospital to save money on lamp replacement costs, battery replacement, and energy efficiency. Over the total life of the system, a hospital building operator/owner – often facing already stretched budgets – can expect to save tens of thousands of pounds.
3: User-friendly systems
Something else to look out for when selecting your emergency lighting system is how user-friendly it is. Emergency lighting systems which run off a low voltage power supply, with batteries that can be safely and legally changed by an unqualified person, provide a far more user-friendly long-term solution for meeting safety needs. Consequently, the need for third-party engineers to undertake these simple replacements is mitigated, and a more cost-effective solution can be achieved.
When used in conjunction with third- party software, you can also find systems which can be connected to a building management system, providing your Building Managemen/Estates and Facilities team with an extra level of access, enabling team members to work more efficiently and productively, manage maintenance more efficiently, and more effectively monitor energy consumption. Central control is
62 Health Estate Journal October 2021 ‘‘
Choosing an emergency lighting system which is simple to install and maintain can help to minimise any disruption to normal hospital activities, thus making both clinical and non-clinical personnel’s job easier, and ensuring optimal care for the patient
particularly beneficial when working on a large or complex healthcare site, where different members of staff require different levels of access to such a system.
Choosing a scalable solution It is also wise to select a system which can be scaled up and down – for example where each nurse station may require a keypad. This allows the system to be adaptable depending on the site size – in healthcare environments ranging from cottage hospitals, to the ‘super healthcare hub’ sites which can be found in some inner city locations.
An element to consider that is often overlooked is emergency lights which illuminate points of emphasis within the hospital environment – for example extinguishers or manual call points. Under emergency situations, where stress levels are high, and time can be against you, good lighting design practice can be used to ensure that these vital points can be easily found and operated safely.
4: Patience safety and privacy It is important to remember that the installation of any new system must be implemented alongside the continuation of patient care. Prior to 2020, there were already a vast number of controls and checks in place to protect patients from MRSA infections, as well as ensuring patient confidentiality when engineers or members of the public entered a hospital. Add in the complexities that have arisen with the COVID-19 pandemic, and ensuring that fire safety equipment installers are in and out of the facility swiftly to minimise these risks is vital. Choosing an emergency lighting system which is simple to install and maintain can help to minimise any disruption to normal
hospital activities, thus making both clinical and non-clinical personnel’s job easier, and ensuring optimal care for the patient.
Sligo hospital project
A great example of this approach in action is the £1.6 million fire safety project at Sligo University Hospital in north- western Ireland, which provides healthcare to the people of Sligo, Leitrim, South Donegal, and West Cavan. SUH has a Medical Academy with NUI Galway which includes clinical rotations/ education for medical students from NUI Galway on the Sligo University Hospital Campus. Fire protection and life safety system specialist, Masterfire Life Safety Systems, chose Hochiki Europe to provide a complete life safety solution to protect the hospital and its patients. Sligo University Hospital’s brief focused on the need to meet stringent hospital environment regulations. Hochiki Europe’s FIREscape system is fully compliant with all European emergency lighting standards, making it the optimum solution. In addition, the system ensured that extra low voltage cable could be utilised, speeding installation time, and eliminating risk to building users. All the products used in this project were simple to install, which reduced the installation time dramatically. Marguerite Heavey, Fire & Safety officer at the HSE Northwest Estates Department, said: “Throughout the project, both Hochiki Europe and Masterfire worked extremely hard to control infection and protect our patients and staff. The installation caused minimal disruption, meaning employees could do their job without the introduction of the new system interfering. Hochiki Europe provided Sligo
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