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FIRE SAFETY => Fire Risk Assessments => Topic started by: Fire Monkey on July 24, 2015, 08:08:52 AM
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Hello,
Does any one have any useful information or experiance with FRAs at Police Stations - in particular in relation to prisioner stay put policies?
Any information of reported fires or risks in paricular to look out for at police stations.
Suggestions on far reaching/probing questions to ask the Responsible person (on how the building is run or on relevent Police operations that a non uniform person would not realise.
Many thanks
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There is home office guidance on the design, use and management of custody suites. This includes management of combustible materials, eg mattresses, ventilation of cells, staff alarms,supervision and monitoring, a form of PHE by subdividing corridors, secure assembly points etc. This should be available to bona Fide enquirers through the H&S manager for the Police Authority. These documents are not in the public domain for obvious reasons.
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Seem to remember the evacuation procedure in my local nick involved all available police officers reporting to the cells and escorting prisoners "one to one"
I asked what happens at night when there is reduced staffing levels. It was met with a dull thud. Eventually, I was informed that as a last resort prisoners were handcuffed together ( compromising any case) and lead out to the exercise yard to await transport to another station.
To answer the question - they didn't have a FRA.
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Fire Monkey
The police Ops Support will already have a police risk assessment for this, based as Prof says on HO Guidance
davo
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the thing with police holding cells is that they are/should be designed with practically no fire load. Prison cells are full of stuff and are a different kettle of fish.
The HO guidance, as I recall, requires the cell area to be segregated from the rest of the building with its own escape route. So you've got bags of time to deal with a controlled evacuation. There will always be a set number of staff (there are rules linked to PACE etc mostly to avoid houscalls from CID (think the sweeny)).