This month, Adair Lewis studies the very different large loss data for various types of UK medical premises
Medical risk review A
GOOD deal of publicity has been given lately to hospitals for several reasons, which include shortage of
funding and staff, concern regarding the increasing numbers of people resorting to A&E departments for medical treatment, and the anti social behaviour of a small proportion of the patients. This survey looks at large loss fires in the medical sector to see if there is a further problem relating to the incidence of large fires in these premises. The medical sector has two subsets:
hospitals/medical care and the inevitable ‘other’ category, which includes surgeries; this survey looks at both. The premises included are thus very diverse, ranging from large teaching hospitals on one hand to small clinics and doctors’ surgeries on the other. Both NHS and private facilities feature in the statistics. In the nine years of the survey, there have been just 36 major fires in the medical sector, with 11 of these occurring in hospitals and 25 in the ‘other’ category. These represent a very small proportion of the number of large loss fires – just 0.7%. While a fire in a hospital developing into a major incident might not be too surprising when considering the size and complexity of the facility, it might not be anticipated that there would be so many major fires in the much smaller surgeries, clinics and related premises. Looking at the causes of the fires, the
results are very different for the two subsets, and do not have an obvious interpretation in terms of the size or use of the premises. Just over a third (36.3%) of the fires in hospitals
52 NOVEMBER 2018
www.frmjournal.com
are the result of accidents, while 44% of those in ‘other premises’ are of accidental origin. The proportion of deliberately started fires, somewhat surprisingly, are greater in hospitals − which are quite heavily populated − compared with only 31.9% of those in other premises, where the opportunities for an arson attack might be thought to be greater. It is good, however, to note that less than 10% of the fires in hospitals are recorded as being of unknown or unassigned origin. Analysing the time of day at which the incidents occur brings a significant surprise: no large loss fire has been recorded in a hospital in the past nine years between the hours of midnight and midday – although admittedly, 45.4% of the incidents have occurred at an unknown (or unrecorded) time of day. In ‘other premises’ the times of the incidents have been distributed throughout the day, with a greater proportion between midnight and 6am in the morning, when many of the surgeries and smaller buildings may be unoccupied. This may emphasise the need for effective automatic fire detection systems to be installed in these premises, with the installations being monitored out of opening hours by an alarm receiving centre (insurers should be consulted for advice on these matters). Thankfully, there have been few occasions
on which the fire and rescue services have encountered impedances to their firefighting operations, but it is surprising that there have been two incidents where firefighters have experienced difficulties gaining access to
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