FOCUS
Staying alert In this unprecedented crisis,Andy Hicks is clear
that now is not the time to neglect fire safety on construction sites and temporary facilities
of this year could have led us to where we are now. The coronavirus pandemic is one of the biggest challenges to face humanity for more than a century. It is non political and non discriminatory, and its impact on global health and the state of our economy is far reaching. In February, the first cases of the virus
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were reported in the UK and by early March it had begun to disrupt the construction industry, with the cancellation of major trade exhibitions. As the realisation that this was going to be a pandemic took hold, large organisations then started to avoid face to face meetings and transferred everything after that to video conferencing. Soon afterwards, following the government announcement, whole construction sites were temporarily closed down and staff were furloughed. Even though noone could have foreseen how wide and disruptive the changes have
20 MAY 2020
www.frmjournal.com
EW PEOPLE could have predicted that the influenza like symptoms first reported in China at the beginning
been in the last few weeks, UK construction has demonstrated its importance as an industry, whether through building temporary hospital wards, changing the use of existing buildings to food storage warehouses or installing life saving oxygen equipment. The construction sector has without doubt delivered for our nation at this difficult time. Our own efforts have involved supplying
wireless fire alarm systems to the new Nightingale Hospital at ExCeL London. The temporary fi eld hospital that was constructed in under a week will treat up to 4,000 patients struck down by COVID-19. Ramtech’s WES3 wireless alarm system is now providing fire, security and emergency response across this vast facility and uses best quality, Category 1, Euro harmonised radio to ensure that it will not interfere with other technologies used on site.
Construction in the pandemic
Not only could noone have predicted that we would have arrived at this situation, but
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