FIRE SAFETY
concerns, he said one of the biggest issues for him – especially in healthcare given the vulnerability of many of the users of the buildings – remains the quality and integrity of fire
compartmentation. He explained: “Not just the compartments themselves – such as the walls – but also the fire doors, fire dampers, fire alarms, and emergency lighting.”
I wondered whether false and unwanted fire alarms were still a major issue in healthcare. He said: “Not so much in the hospitals I am responsible for at Sodexo, although hospitals have historically been among the worst offenders, certainly in London. When I joined St George’s Hospital in Tooting, it was the capital’s worst offender. There are, of course, different categories of false alarm – some caused by incorrectly installed or maintained equipment, and others by careless practice – such as people using deodorants or burning toast. Then there are malicious activations, when an individual deliberately activates a call point. At other times people set off alarms with good intent, for example when they smell smoke.
A drain on resources
“At one stage,” he added, “attending ‘false alarm’ incidents became such a drain on the London Fire Brigade’s resources that the Brigade decided to penalise businesses including hospitals for anything over a certain quota – I believe it was nine – of Unwanted Fire Signals in a given year.” Maz Daoud said that while the resulting fines ‘mounted up’ at some hospitals, and some hospital fire officers became ‘quite agitated’, ‘the system at least concentrated the mind of Fire Safety advisors etc to develop systems and procedures to reduce the number of call- outs’. He expanded: “While I was at St George’s Hospital, I instigated an initial investigation period for fire alarms during the day – because that is when we had the most false alarms and the most staff available.”
The initiative – since adopted by quite a large number of brigades nationally – had the desired effect, considerably reducing the number of unwanted fire signals passed by the hospital to the LFB. He elaborated: “When the fire alarm sounds, you immediately dispatch your Fire Response team – usually comprising security personnel, porters, estates staff, and a clinical site manager – to see whether it is an unwanted fire signal or a real fire. If two devices activate, you normally call the Fire Brigade immediately. Usually you give the Fire Response team anything from 3-8 minutes – depending on the risk, and how long it might reasonably take them – to investigate, and if applicable, then radio back to the hospital’s switchboard. If, after
‘What can go wrong when compartmentation fails’ – an arson incident at Croydon University Hospital in 2009 saw a fire that started in a corridor spread to the MRI unit via a ‘hole’ in the fire compartmentation.
the predetermined investigation period has passed, they have not heard from the team, the switchboard or help desk will radio up to the Fire Response team to see if they have located the cause, and, if not, will call the local fire service.”
Given proper thought?
He added: “Fire safety has always, in my experience, been taken pretty seriously in hospitals, where you have two major factors not present elsewhere – the dependency of the patients, and the presence of medical gas cylinders and pipeline systems. The latter have been implicated in a number of high profile hospital fires, and require careful storage and handling. With any fire involving oxygen, practically everything will burn – very quickly.”
IHEEM’s Fire Safety Technical Platform Moving on to focus specifically on IHEEM’s Fire Safety Technical Platform. Maz Daoud explained that he had volunteered to chair it last Summer, having only joined the Institute a short time before. He is also a member of the Institute of Fire Engineers, and the National Association of Healthcare Fire Officers (NAHFO). He said: “I offered to chair the Platform through Mike Ralph, who encouraged me. I believe it was his idea to get the new Platform established. We had an initial teleconference early this year about the Platform’s establishment, and have held two face-to-face meetings since.” I asked him what he saw as the Platform’s main roles.
Early focus
He said: “While still early days, we have identified two main initial focuses – the first around maintenance of fire safety and fire safety equipment in hospitals, and producing some guidance to supplement what already exists. Our second goal is to establish a formal register for fire risk assessors, since that sector is largely unregulated.”
Beginning with the first, he said: “One of the Platform’s key functions will be to provide expert guidance to NHS Trust Fire Safety advisors on fire safety, and maintaining fire safety equipment, since such personnel tend to have a lot on their plate. To help ensure that key fire safety equipment is properly maintained in healthcare premises, we have already written, in draft form, the start of a series
In the same fire at Croydon University Hospital, what a fire door can do if part of an effective fire compartment.
October 2018 Health Estate Journal 31
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