Loss analysis Main category: Medical Cause
Hospitals and medical care Hospitals
Other (including surgery) Time of day
Hospitals and medical care Hospitals
Other (including surgery) Impedances
Hospitals and medical care Hospitals
Other (including surgery) Sub category: Hospitals/medical care and ‘other (including surgery)’ Jan 2009 to Dec 2017: During this period, large loss fires in medical premises accounted for 0.7% of all large loss fires
The numbers: There were 36 large loss fires in medical premises, 11 of which occurred in hospitals and 25 in ‘other (including surgery)’
Accidental 41.7% 36.3% 44.0%
8.3% 0.0%
Deliberate 38.9% 54.0% 31.9%
24.0% Total 4 3 1
12.0%
Access 2 2 0
16.7% 18.3% 16.0%
Unknown/unassigned 19.5% 9.2%
24.0%
00:00 - 06:00 06:00 - 12:00 12:00 - 18:00 18:00 - 00:00 16.7% 0.0%
22.2% 36.3% 16.0%
Acetylene Inadequate water 1 0 1
0 0 0
Unknown 36.1% 45.4% 32.0%
Resources 1 1 0
The cost: Fires in hospitals and medical care account for 1.1% of estimated financial losses in all large loss fires, with an average loss of £1,022,124 per fire. Large loss fires in hospitals and medical care premises cost on average £1,994,099; those in other (including surgery) cost on average £576,639
Insurance component
Hospitals and medical care Hospitals
Other (including surgery)
Material damage
44.8% 45.1% 44.4%
Business
interruption Contents Loss of rent 37.0% 39.0% 33.7%
9.0% 6.0%
13.6% Fires in hospitals and medical care premises cost on average £1,683m2
hospital premises − buildings that are notorious for not normally being locked at any time of day. The most serious of the incidents involved an acetylene cylinder at a surgery, which reinforces guidance which indicates that hot work should only be undertaken where there is no practical alternative. Where it is necessary, it should be carried out under a hot work permit scheme and supervision should include only permitting acetylene cylinders on site for the minimum time consistent with effective working practices. The cost of fires considered here does
not take note of the disruption of treatment to patients, the loss of community facilities and other social factors, which may often be considered to be more important than property losses. The average cost per fire reflects the size of the establishment, as would be expected; a major fire in a hospital involves an average loss of nearly £2m, whereas a major fire in any other form of medical building costs on average a little over £500,000. Looking at the insurance components, there
is little difference between the percentage of the loss in relation to buildings and business interruption experienced by hospitals and ‘other (including surgery)’. While it may not be surprising that loss of rent accounts for over 5% of the total loss in respect of ‘other premises’, the proportion relating to the contents of the latter is over double that for hospitals.
2.1% 0.2% 5.2%
Machine and plant
1.6% 2.7% 0.0%
Stock Other 0.3% 0.0% 0.7%
5.2% 7.0% 2.3%
, whereas those in other (including surgery) cost £776m2 This may be because some of the clinics
contain expensive specialist scanning or other equipment. In terms of loss per square metre, the loss in hospitals is £1,683m2 £766m2
compared with for ‘other’ buildings. This is higher than
might be expected, when considering the large waiting and circulation areas, and long corridors that are found in hospitals. The key life safety factor in the event of fire
is the effective training of staff. Experience has shown that where there has been a fire in a healthcare premises, especially in a large hospital, the prompt reaction of well trained staff has been crucial to protecting life. It is anticipated that this will also be reflected in minimising losses to property and vital community facilities. Specific fire safety guidance for hospitals is set out in three Health Technical Memoranda; these should also form the basis for best practice in other healthcare premises. Small doctors’ and dental surgeries should also have effective emergency plans in place to ensure the resilience of the facility. One way of approaching this is to complete
the ROBUST business continuity and incident management planning software, which is available free of charge from https://robust.
riscauthority.co.uk/
Adair Lewis is technical consultant at the FPA. For more information, view page 5
These statistics are based on information supplied by loss adjusters to the FPA on a voluntary basis and not all insurers conducting business in the UK contribute to this dataset. They represent only sums paid out where the total loss is in excess of £100k and are deficient of losses under £100K, deductibles, underinsurance, uninsured, self-insured and captively insured components, which may be significant. In a year, total losses captured typically account for 50% of the ABI declared annual fire loss figure – which is similarly deficient of the same components (except the £100k threshold).
www.frmjournal.com NOVEMBER 2018 53
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