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FIRE SAFETY


Focus on competence in the wake of Grenfell fire


Fire safety is a key responsibility for healthcare estates teams, and June 2017’s Grenfell Tower fire, and the subsequent official review, have ensured an even higher profile for it. Last November saw a new IHEEM Fire Safety Technical Platform formed, set up – like its existing counterparts – to provide guidance, act as a focus group and create policy on technology issues, advise IHEEM’s Council, and manage technical responses and activities. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, recently met with its chair, IHEEM member and former London Fire Brigade firefighter, Maz Daoud, to find out more about the new Platform’s priorities and planned work, and discuss some of today’s key fire safety concerns in healthcare.


I met up with Maz Daoud – in his ‘day job’ Fire Safety engineer at integrated facilities management specialist, Sodexo – at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Roehampton – one of the healthcare facilities where he is responsible, on the company’s behalf, for fire safety, and began by asking him about his own professional background, before discussing the aims of the new IHEEM Fire Technical Platform. He said: “My current role as Sodexo Fire Safety engineer involves considerable travel to Sodexo sites at hospitals, and a range of other properties, throughout the UK.” Of his earlier career, he said: “I began my time in the fire service as a firefighter with the London Fire Brigade, which I joined in 1982, aged 24. It was on subsequent promotion to Station Officer that I moved substantively into ‘fire safety’. I first enrolled as a firefighter, and, after five years with the LFB, moved into training for two years, emerging as a sub- officer, two ranks up from when I entered. I then progressed to the next rank of Station Officer, in charge of a watch.” Maz Daoud was based at a number of fire stations during his time with the London Fire Brigade, including Clapham, New Malden, and Sanderstead. He explained: “It was after I was a sub-officer at Sanderstead that I gained my first fire safety role experience – on a temporary secondment to the Fire Safety Enforcement team covering the London Boroughs of Clapham and Wandsworth, initially for six weeks. While I was there I was promoted to Station Officer. I spent much of the rest of my LFB career in fire safety roles, as a Station Officer,


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or Station Commander, in the latter rank responsible at different times for enforcement in boroughs including Lambeth, Wandsworth, Ealing, Harrow, Wembley, and Westminster.”


Ensuring compliance


In the Station Commander roles, the teams reporting to him spent much of their time out ensuring that buildings were compliant with fire safety legislation. He added: “I was also still regularly attending fires as a Station Commander, in charge of fires with six fire engines attending, and attended fires if called upon to do so upon in my specialist role as senior Fire Safety officer.” Maz Daoud’s last role with the LFB was as Station Commander and senior Fire Safety officer for the London Boroughs of Wembley and Ealing. On leaving the London Fire Brigade in 2012, he spent two years as Fire Safety advisor at Croydon University Hospital, before moving to St George’s Hopsital in Tooting in the same role. He explained: “I left there to join Sodexo as Fire Safety engineer – my current role – in spring 2015.”


A national role


“My Sodexo role is a national one,” he explained. “In addition to hospitals and other healthcare facilities, I look after properties in the commercial, educational, corporate office, and custodial sectors, focusing on just about every element of fire safety.” Until recently he reported to another prominent IHEEM member, Mike Ralph, who has had a long healthcare engineering career himself – including as Estates Director at a number of prominent


In addition to hospitals and other healthcare facilities, I look after properties in the commercial, educational, corporate office, and custodial sectors, focusing on just about every element of fire safety


30 Health Estate Journal October 2018


Maz Daoud said: “If I was considering employing an external fire risk assessor, I would want it to be accredited under a third-party certification scheme.”


NHS Trusts. Mike Ralph was, until last month – when he moved to become Chief Engineer at NHSI – UK Technical Services director at Sodexo (he is also a member of the Fire Technical Platform, chairs IHEEM’s Medical Gases Technical Platform, and is a member of the Institute’s Professional Development Committee.)


Extensive operational experience Speaking a little more about his time as an LFB firefighter, Maz Daoud explained that he had gained extensive operational experience. He said: “For about a year I served as the LFB’s liaison officer for Heathrow Terminal 5 during its design, which included complex fire engineering; at the time it was Europe’s largest construction project. Wembley Stadium was also in the Borough I oversaw, and I got involved there from a fire safety perspective in the design stages. The experience I gained has been invaluable here at Sodexo.”


Moving to discuss his key fire safety


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