FIRE SAFETY
of new Technical Guidance Notes focusing initially on the risks with equipment such as fire alarms, fire dampers, and fire doors, and the attendant maintenance needs. We hope to publish these three initial guides soon. The NHS spends considerable sums testing and maintaining all this equipment, but is it being optimally spent? For example, hospital fire doors all tend to be checked three or six-monthly, and yet some hardly get any use, and others constant use. It thus doesn’t make sense to test all of them equally often. Some are also more critical than others; for instance we have a fire door to this meeting room, yet if the fire alarm sounds, we can just get up and walk out. In an ITU or theatre, conversely, the staff need to stay in the clinical space if at all possible; moving patients is extremely hazardous, and the fire door has a far more important role. We should thus be questioning why we are testing the doors to a meeting room as often as we are those in an operating theatre.”
Three initial guides
The first three Technical Guidance Notes are on ‘Fire damper maintenance’, ‘Fire doors’, and ‘Fire compartmentation’. Maz Daoud added: “They are thus really all to do with fire compartmentation.” I expressed surprise that such information was not already easily accessible in, for example, HTM guidance. He replied: “Some of it is in HTM 05-03, Part K, which recommends – on the frequency of testing of various fire safety elements – that all fire compartments be ‘checked annually’. In a large acute hospital, however, that is an awful lot of fire compartmentation, and is it actually necessary to check all the compartments when the risk varies so much?” When considering a healthcare facility’s fire compartmentation, Maz Daoud explained, a building is divided into main compartments, with any over a certain size further divided into sub- compartments. He elaborated: “Equally, any areas of higher risk – such as a ward kitchen – are designated as fire hazard rooms, and become a fire compartment in their own right. The idea is that dependent patients are only evacuated into the next safe compartment where their care can continue.”
Testing compartmentation How easy, though, is it to test fire compartmentation in a ‘live’ hospital? Maz Daoud said: “There are three main elements – the first being the walls, where the priority is principally to ensure structural integrity, and that there are no ‘holes’. That sounds easy, but often means getting above a ceiling, which can be pretty disruptive in a working ward, especially given infection control
32 Health Estate Journal October 2018 ‘‘
I think testing all the compartmentation at a large acute hospital site can be a massive practical challenge; the same goes for dampers
considerations.” It was also key, he emphasised, to properly test fire and smoke dampers. He explained: “Some dampers are held open by a fusible link that melts on reaching a certain temperature, and others operated by the smoke detection or fire alarm system, which operates an electric motor which shuts them. Most fire dampers are tested to the same criteria as fire compartments, to withstand fire for 30 or 60 minutes, although most come with intrinsic four- hour fire resistance. Modern fire doors can be made out of almost any wood or metal. There are few limitations; they must simply pass the necessary fire resistance tests. Most 44 mm thick solid softwood doors, for example, will have a half-hour fire rating, but many are now produced from a composite.”
A sizeable task
I wondered whether an external fire risk assessment contractor would, as part of its work at a large acute NHS acute hospital, properly test fire compartmentation. “Generally not; it takes too long,” Maz Daoud replied, “particularly as much of the inspection has to be undertaken manually. I think testing all the compartmentation at a large acute hospital site can be a massive practical challenge; the same goes for dampers. While the electronic variants
feature limit switches that indicate via a light when they are fully closed or fully open, the fusible link dampers don’t. Again, the guidance in British Standards is to test those annually, but in a large hospital there may be several thousand. At Manchester Royal Infirmary, Sodexo has two staff pretty well doing nothing but testing fire dampers.”
I asked about the proposed format for the new Technical Guidance Notes. Maz Daoud said: “We will be looking to keep them quite concise, focusing principally on the risk, rather than being too prescriptive about testing frequency. Our message will be that the level of maintenance that is put into looking after key fire safety components should accord with the level of attendant risk. We will probably illustrate the guides with some examples. Our aim is that they will be jointly written by Platform members.”
‘Couched in very general language’ He added: “Currently the main UK fire safety guidance is HTM 05 (Firecode) and its Scottish and Welsh derivatives, backed by a number of British and European standards. Legislation-wise, we have the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, published in 2006. The stipulations in the ‘RRO’ are, however, couched in very ‘general’ language. For instance, Article 17, covering maintenance, states that ‘where necessary, in order to safeguard the safety of relevant persons, items required for fire safety should be subject to a suitable system of maintenance, and maintained in an efficient state, efficient working order, and good repair’. Not very specific language, so if, for example, BS9999 says you should undertake planned preventative maintenance on all your fire doors at least six-monthly, and they are being bashed to pieces in three months, you may be complying with the British Standard, but not with the legislation – since leaving damaged doors in place until the PPM inspection cannot be said to constitute ‘a suitable system of maintenance’. HTM 05-03 Part K, conversely, says all fire doors should be checked monthly. St George’s Hospital in Tooting has around 8,000 fire doors, and – allowing five minutes to check each and carry out necessary repairs – it would take 18 staff to do nothing but check fire doors.”
Frequency of checking
Fire compartmentation breached in a London NHS hospital, where contractors have removed a pipe.
Similarly, Maz Daoud argued, if a hospital checked all its fire dampers at approximately the same date two years
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