Fire Safety in assisted living

[Fire Monkey]

Hi,

I would like some advice please regarding an assisted living scenario:
* Street property (C1920)
* FRA states full evacuation - it is presumed the floors are not fire resisting
* Property occupied by 3/4 persons with long term mental health/phycological issues
* Property managed by a Care Company working directly for Social Services.
* Ownership of property is not clear
* One resident is immobile and cannot evacuate them selves (bedroom on GF)
* During the day two care assistants aid evacuation but at night there is only one on duty to manage the bed to wheel chair hoist (which management company indicates is not sufficient).
* Detection in every room with fire panel
* FD30S doors all over
* Limited hazards/risks
* Domestic setting
* No live in care but 24hr staff
* Communal kitchen and lounge

Under what circumstances, use of training, specialised equipment, risk/hazard mitigation, auto dialler, proximity of 24 fire station and so on could it be potentially considered that the person on the GF not be evacuated but the able bodied occupants do - NFCC_Specialised_Housing_Guidance states:  Compartmentation in supported housing is not normally adequate to support a ?stay put? strategy, so it is normally necessary to evacuate all residents when fire occurs. So, just what is a not normal situation?

A case study would be very useful.

Thanks,

[AnthonyB]

Some of the supporting living charities I've worked for have opted for retrofitting of sprinklers instead of upping the structure although if there were physical mobility issues as well as cognitive/psychological they wouldn't be using their multi floor house type premises, but their bungalow type premises, although in your case they are already on the ground floor.

In most of the houses & domestic bungalows there are no/limited physical issues and they deliberately have purpose built bungalows to care home design specification for cases like yours.

The care home guidance talks about upping compartmentation for 'defend in place' but this doesn't help with the risks in the immobile persons room and where the person centred RA kicks in.

The two most common ownership types I've encountered are:
- Housing & Care Charity provides the premises and maintains the fabric, the staffing and care is contracted out to the care provider of the choice of the service user (or their attorney) which is usually another charity or private company. I dislike this model as it makes management a pain as fire safety issues are fragmented between multiple organisations.
- Housing & Care Charity provides the premises and staff and is solely responsible for all aspects of fire safety.

It's difficult to give exact pointers without being involved as each situation is unique in at least one aspect or another!