Fire safety
Why building fire resilience is critical in care homes
Fire Protection Association technical director Dr. Jim Glockling outlines the steps care home businesses should take to ensure the right fire safety measures are in place
How far does the care in care homes extend? Ideally, it should mean that every aspect of a vulnerable resident’s life is considered, and all necessary measures are taken to ensure that they have the safe, happy, healthy and fulfilled existence they deserve. From a fire perspective, achieving this demands that planning starts early – at the design stage – even before ground has been broken to build the home. The environment of a care home
presents a specific suite of fire risk challenges that needs very careful consideration if the vulnerable occupants, and their families, are to benefit from the protection they deserve. Aside from the obvious potential for immediate life loss associated with any fire, in this situation, the stress caused by the sudden displacement from a familiar environment can itself be greatly harmful, if not life-ending in its own right.
The importance of fire resilience A series of fires in London care homes prompted the London Fire Brigade to audit 177 homes in 2019 – the largest ever
audit of its kind. Nearly half the homes reviewed did not have sufficient fire risk assessments and those responsible for carrying out such assessments often lacked the proper skills and experience to do so. The audit also found there was widespread confusion about fire evacuation strategies. It is important here to understand the weaknesses of the UK building regulations in supporting situations where survival of the property and protection of the services it supports are valued. Put simply, UK regulations seek only to ensure
Should you be carrying out any renovation work to your care home, it is important to be aware of an existing wall, floor or ceiling’s potential fire protection role and the compartmentation strategy within a new design
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that occupants are evacuated from a building before it structurally collapses. This alone can be complex enough
to achieve in the care environment, but with no legal provisioning to extinguish a fire, stop its spread, or seek to ensure the building is recoverable by the end of the event, proper ‘care’ provisioning - ensuring occupants still have a familiar place to live - will never be native to a solely compliant building. Additional measures will need to be taken voluntarily. The impact of this weak regulation is
at the heart of many recent fires where extensive damage or total building loss has been experienced. Buildings that once might have assured the safety of their occupants by being made of non- combustible materials – e.g. bricks and mortar- can now be constructed using cheaper lightweight building techniques comprising timber and combustible insulation. The buildings might well be as safe
in terms of immediate evacuation, but what is left after a fire to recover might
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com • October 2021
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