Fire safety is at the forefront of many people’s minds at the moment and in the health sector, this is no different.
Here, Richard Sutton, General Manager at Horbury Property Services, looks at fire risk assessments and why it is so important that fire compartmentation is properly inspected.
“Back in June, the Government ordered more than 17,000 care homes, private hospitals and hospices to carry out checks on the fire safety of their buildings. A number of hospital trusts were found to have serious breaches, whilst some had failings in basic fire standards and others were warned that a failure to properly compartmentalise areas was putting patients at intolerable risk if fire broke out (source: Health Service Journal).
With care homes occupied by many vulnerable and immobile people, the fire strategy needs to be given extra special consideration. Thirty minutes’ fire protection, for example, which is offered by a standard fire door, may not be enough.
Regulatory Reform Order
Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, a duty holder (who is required to be a competent person within the organisation or external specialist) needs to be appointed to carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment on all sleeping accommodation in England and Wales. The fire risk assessment should be detailed and rigorous, covering many aspects, one of which is ensuring the integrity of fire compartmentation, including fire doors.
Residential nursing or care homes are occupied by people who may find it very hard (if not impossible) to be evacuated quickly in the event of a fire. So it is essential that a thorough assessment is carried out of all the areas, paying particular attention to a residents’ or patients’ needs.
Guidance on carrying out fire risk assessments in a care home identifies three key areas: firstly that the building fabric needs to be considered in terms of its fire safety, this includes effectiveness of fire doors and fire compartmentation and any breaches to this; secondly fire risk assessments should identify any hazards that may cause a fire and thirdly, the needs of those being cared for and employees should be carefully considered.
Fire risk assessments should always be part of a fire action plan and the plan should contain any remedial work that has been identified within the risk assessment and a timetable for rectifying it.
Fire Compartmentation inspection
Buildings 10 years old or less will have been built in accordance with Building Regulations Approved Document B, which requires that the building be sub-divided into a number of discreet compartments or cells. Within each cell, the dividing walls are filled with specialist materials that prevent the passage of fire from one cell to another for a given period of time.
Compartmentation aims to contain fires, based on the premise that large fires are more dangerous to occupants, fire and rescue services and people located nearby. It has also been found to limit damage to a building and its contents.
One of the main benefits of compartmentation is that it protects ‘means of escape’ routes from a building. This feature is particularly important where there is minimal fire separation, other than the means of escape, for example, a small care home served by a single flight of stairs. In this case, the floor area may be open plan, with no partitions, however, the stairs should be enclosed by fire walls (and fire doors) to ensure a fire within any part of the accommodation cannot pass through to the stairway. Spaces that connect fire compartments, such as stairways and service shafts, are described as ‘protected shafts’. These play an important role in restricting fire spread between the compartments. For care home operators, it is equally important to ensure that fires do not start in the common parts or communal facilities, as in individual resident’s rooms.
Larger buildings, such as hospitals, have greater reliance on fire compartmentation. Most large buildings are divided into ‘compartments’ which can withstand a fire for a specific amount of time, either inside the compartment or externally. This fire protective barrier gives a chance for occupants to be evacuated and for emergency services to arrive and extinguish the fire, or for the fire to extinguish on its own.
Breaches
Assessing the integrity of a fire compartment is a vitally important part of any fire risk assessment. This includes checking whether there are any holes in the walls, floors or ceilings. These could have been caused by accidental damage, but equally likely is the fact they could be as a result of service works, such as IT, telephone or television systems being upgraded. This could compromise the integrity of the fire compartmentation, so it is essential it is checked regularly.
Fire risk assessments should be carried out by a competent person within the building, but the issue in the majority of cases is that this does not extend to inspecting the integrity of the fire compartmentation. When building services work has been carried out in a hospital or care home there is a high chance that fire compartmentation could have been breached, which significantly increases the risks of fire spreading.
Fire compartmentation, if installed correctly, does have an enviable success rate, however it is the weaknesses that must be constantly considered, particularly when building service alterations take place. Fire risk assessments must be sufficiently rigorous and if remedial work is not carried out, it could lead to a potential failing of fire compartmentation, allowing a fire to spread. Fire doors are an important part of ensuring fire compartmentation is maintained too, but they too are often not subject to sufficiently rigorous or regular inspections. Again, this could lead to a breach of fire compartmentation, for example if the fire seals are broken, the door closers are not working properly or the ironmongery has become worn or the glazing detached.
Assessing the risks
There are very serious considerations that if adequate fire risk assessments are not carried out regularly it could compromise the safety of the whole building. Fire risk assessments should include a review of a building’s fire compartmentation by a competent person or external fire inspection company, thus minimising the risks to occupants and a building. When fire compartmentation is regularly inspected and well maintained, there is no better form of fire protection.”
For more information about fire compartmentation, fire stopping and fire door inspections, contact the Horbury Property Services team on: 01709 917555 or visit the website www.horburypropertyservices.com.
