Staff Fire Training

[creswell]

I am not having much luck in finding out where the 3 Monthly & 6 Monthly training periods came from for resitential workers, for care hame i have looked in the care home standards regs 2001 no mention in there, Hotel staff also receive training within the same periods, the new regs dont mention how often training should be given, only that it must be, i have a number of old fire log books which do mention the 3 & 6 monthly periods but make no reference, can anyone put me out of my misery please.

[Midland Retty]

The new guides are very sketchy about this Im afraid, and it only seems to mention that training should be undertaken "periodically, upon first being employed or exposed to new or additional risks, or as identified by your risk assessment"

As an Inspecting Officer I normally advise two fire drills are undertaken annually (to cover all staff - i.e. night staff and day staff) and fire safety training to repeated atleast annually to include evac procedures, door check procedures and the use of Fire Extinguishers.

So in short staff should receive training on first employment, when exposed to new or increased risk and then periodically.

Risk assess it , observe your fire drills to see how your staff cope / react , periodically quiz your staff to ensure they know what they are supposed to be doing and if you have any doubts instigate refresher training if you feel there are any problems. The idea is that you as monitor your own staff etc.

As a double check measure contact your local Fire Officer to see what s/he would accept.

[jokar]

No time limits exist therefore you need to assess how and when staff require training and then to test the training and the evacuation plan by undertaking fire drills to support it.  Dependent on the Policy for fire, recorded or not under Article 11 of the RR(FS)O, that would have been completed by the RP the training can be monitored to check its effectiveness and the best practice time scales as suggested by Midland Retty increased, decreased or left as they stand.

[kurnal]

Before giving up entirely I should just investigate whether there were any local standards agreed between the health authorities and the fire authority (who used to inspect fire safety standards in Nursing Homes legislation on their behalf), and the Social Serivces and the Fire service, as the fire services used to inspect fire safety standards as agency work for the social services under the registerd homes act 1984.

What used to happen is that there were an agreed set of standards as a benchmark against which the fire service measured the home and reported any transgressions to the social services. Whilst the fire service would recommend reasonable timescales for any work by letter to the home, any actual enforcement would be by the social services.

I think your local rules would have come from these old agreements and would have died with the introduction of the Care Standards Act 2000.