FIRE SAFETY
Patients will still have fire safety as part of their risk assessment on admission, and control of ignition sources and potential fuel will always remain important
stages was successful with the room door both open and shut, which was another important consideration.
No ‘dead-leg’
The misting head fitted to the wall – showing how discreet the unit is.
misting. This has now been achieved, but a number of different technical experts had to be consulted before the Siemens system could integrate and communicate, without failure, with the Automist system. Basing the new system on Automist also had a number of practical advantages over more traditional sprinklers. Automist requires a normal domestic standard of water supply, i.e. at 1-10 bar pressure, with a 6-litre per minute flow. This was easily achievable into every bedroom at Prospect Park, as the bedrooms all have en-suite shower or bathrooms. At no point did the ward, where installation was taking place, have to be closed, as the installation is relatively non-intrusive, and with the head being wall mounted, there was no need for works above the bedroom ceilings beyond the cabling.
Misting head design
A critical problem remained - the misting head design. To be fully effective the head must be midway between floor and ceiling, meaning that the head was going to be a potential ligature point, and susceptible to damage by the patient. ISS & Vapourmist worked together to design a modified anti- ligature head and carried out extensive testing of the system. Andrew Fraser has worked for many years at Prospect Park Hospital, and used his experience of anti- ligature fittings to suggest a design; Vapourmist engineers then made moulds and cast a number of the new design heads ready for testing. When activated, the Automist pump supplies water at 90 bars pressure through four tiny nozzles. This means it is extremely difficult to stop the flow of water by either holding a flat object over the nozzle, or indeed attempting to push things into the nozzles. Tests also established that this amount of pressure would not cause injuries to a hand held close to the nozzles. All attempts at self- harm or to vandalise the head during tests failed to stem the flow of water, so some live fire tests were arranged. These took place using a standard fire crib at Exova in High Wycombe, and showed the misting being triggered almost immediately after the smoke detector was activated. Suppression of the fire in its very early
THE NETWORK | JULY 2020
Misting systems, unlike more traditional sprinklers, do need to be operated at least annually as part of their periodic planned maintenance (PPM) so, the ability to do this needed to be considered, as did the associated Legionella risk of doing so. There is no ‘deadleg’ of non-circulating water, as the section of pipework between pump and nozzle is dry. This notwithstanding, an auto- flushing regime has been added to the system to remove any risk of water droplets remaining in the dry pipe after testing The difficulty of recruiting staff and retaining them is a well-documented problem for the NHS, and acute mental health services are especially challenged – Prospect Park Hospital is not immune to these issues. Would this misting system just add to the training burden on our staff? The answer is no; nothing will change in the procedures for investigating an incident and using the principle of progressive horizontal evacuation to move patients away from immediate danger. With such low flow rates, there is no imperative to turn off the misting at an early stage for fear of water damage; in fact the system has the facility to have a default period of time after which it will switch itself off. Staff should have less to think about, the likelihood being that there will be no need for staff to attack the fire.
The shut-off device for the misting system.
Not a fire safety ‘panacea’ Berkshire Healthcare is continuing to reduce fire risk to patients through other means, and certainly does not see misting systems as a fire safety panacea. Patients will still have fire safety as part of their risk assessment on admission, and control of ignition sources and potential fuel will always remain important, as will procurement of fire-retardant furniture, and designing out any areas where a fire could be set underneath furniture; particularly the bed itself.
There have been teething problems, but with hard work we have a working system. There is no water tank, the system can be flushed and tested, and can be isolated locally if needed. It is still early to be definitive, but so far this hybrid of commercial and domestic fire safety would appear to be something of a positive breakthrough. Most critically, we have a system that we believe protects our patients, our staff, and our property, in a more effective way, but that does not add any more risk to our patients and their potential for self-harm.
Ian Greggor and Andrew Walker
Ian Greggor, director, Estates and Facilities, at Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, has worked in healthcare for over 30 years, mostly within the NHS. He has enjoyed a variety of roles in estates, service transformation, and operational clinical management, within organisations including acute hospitals, Primary Care Trusts, and the NHSI Strategic Estates Planning team. He also worked in private healthcare with Bupa and Nuffield Hospitals.
He would like to note his thanks to ISS Medicare, and in particular to Andrew Fraser, and all at Vapourmist solutions, but especially to Andrew Walker, the Trust’s Fire Safety specialist, ‘whose hard work and commitment has enabled this excellent innovation’.
Andrew Walker, Fire Safety specialist at Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, worked for 30 years in local authority fire and rescue services. He started his career in Oxfordshire, before moving to Buckinghamshire. After 20 years’ operational service, he spent 10 years as a specialist fire safety officer, before joining the NHS as a fire safety specialist three years ago.
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