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FIRE SERVICE AND GENERAL FIRE SAFETY TOPICS => Fire Safety => Topic started by: johngal on November 01, 2004, 04:35:28 PM
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At a recent fire safety inspection in one of our nightclubs the attending officer suggested I update our Fire Risk Assessment to "assess a limit to the amount of disabled persons you can allow on your premises at any one time". In light of the DDA surely by refusing entry or service to a person in a wheelchair (for example) because there is already 3 or 4 disabled persons in wheelchairs on the premises would be classed as discrimination?
He also stated i should take into account the size of our refuges and the location of said refuges before deciding how many persons we could accomodate. I have spoken to a Fire Officer from another force since who has disagreed with the initial view and suggested if we had enough staff on duty to assist and our provisions were suitable then he did not see a problem. Please advise!
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From what I've read you can legitimately use H&S as a reason for exclusion in existing premises, but must also be able to prove that there was no reasonable adjustment to remove the risk that you could have used - in other words you can't just use it as a cop-out
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I think Anthony is right but you need to cover your backside with a suitable procedure.
I would have thought that any club ought to be able to accommodate a disabled population proportionate to their distribution in the national population.
If you get more than that then you should have procedures in place. There should also be some procedure for accommodating more if you get some advanced warning.
At the end of the day none of this has been tested in court.
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Every building has a practical limit for the number of people that can be safely accomodated, able or disabled. This upper limit may be specifically stated in the fire certificate or by other people eg the Licensing Authority for places of public entertainment. This limit depends on the construction of the building, ie the number of exits available, alarm system, refuges for the disabled, etc.. If there is a limit on able people, then I see no problem, legal or moral, on limiting the number of disabled people to that which the building can safely accomodate at one time.
After all, if you let too many wheeelchair users in and there was an incident in which one or more such people were injured, perhaps because there was insufficient refuge space, I have no doubt the lawyer for HSE and for the victims would pounce. I'd rather answer a lawyer with safety reasons for refusing entry than one suing for compensation because I let too many in!
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I think John is right
Where I work we have in the past refused entry to less abled persons due to safety reasons, and I have to say they were perfectly co-operative and understanding with our explanation as to why we couldnt let them in.
So as everyone has said above yes you can refuse entry so long as there is a legitimate safety reason for doing so.
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It should be remembered that refuges are only temporary resting places, not parking spots for disabled people before they are rescued by the F&RS.
It's not something you can put an absolute number on as the abilities of the individual disabled people, the numbers of staff on site and the generaly occupancy of the venue as a whole vary over time.
It's generally accepted that a blanket ban without any investigation of reasonable adjustments would be unlawful.
Dave
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I think the inspecting officer from the initial post was quite correct to quetsion this. After all, from what I have read I think everyone is in agreement in a roundabout way.
All he is asking for is justifiactions in RA format to simply consider numbers of disabled persons in the evacuation procedure. I think if I were disabled I would expect this to be considered as an absolute minimum and not being allowed to enter a premises because of the findings is spot on. Yes easy to say when your not diabled I know but if I were the inspecting officer, for which I have done, then I would expect this to be included in any RA, just as mush as you would expect to see a maximum occupancy.
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The offence under DDA is to unreasonably discriminate. So you must do what's reasonable to accommodate wheelchair users by adjustments and management controls and only then prevent access beyond the numbers with which you can cope. In these litigious times, you will need a good defence when they put such decision to the test.