Organising fire training, audits, and risk assessments etc.

[Tom Sutton]

How should you organise fire training, audits, and risk assessments etc. for an organisation who owns a number of care homes with nursing, to make certain that as an organisation they fully comply with fire regulations.

[kurnal]

Hi TW
Heres a few thoughts for starters:
Ascertain the level of compliance the organisation aspires to. Do they want to simply satisfy the inspectors and enforcers (very easy to do bull**** baffles brains) or do they want to put in place systems that really work?

step 1- make sure they all have a competent fire risk assessment
step 2- make sure they all have a proper fire  emergency plan that matches their building, staffing and service users needs
Step 3- Implement the findings and buy the necessary kit
step 5- rewrite their emergency evacuation plan (guaranteed to be necessary)
step 6- consider how the staffing works and how temporary and agency staff can be covered
step 7- train all staff in the new procedures including exercises.

They all have plans that mention things like progressive horizontal evacauation.
But to evaluate the existing fire plan you need to ask difficult technical questions like:
If theres a fire in this room who are you going to rescue first?
If mrs Bloggs is ill in bed what are you going to do?
In this protected area in a fire situation tell me who you are going to move first and how you will move them?
If you are evacuating this area at 3am where are you going to move the residents to and how are you going to prevent them falling down stairs or wandering off whilst you help the others?

By the way- step 4- I must learn to count.

[jokar]

How about find out what the evacuation plan is, make sure there is a fire alarm system that will support that strategy, train the staff to understand the evacuation strategy and the fire alarm plus any specific roles in the plan that staff will do.  If that can not be the case then a strategy will ahve to be written that supports the fire alarm or that will support a fire alarm system that will require change.

That does the life safety bit along with some training (drills) to support it.  Then comes the FRA which has some of the outcomes already completed because of the above.  I know this seems the wrong way around but the life safety bits need to be completed to ensure people safety.

[firestop]

The  easiest way to do it is to 'hire in' a competent person to come and talk to you so that any ongoing questions may be discussed. That person will probably do a good job in the first place so that when the assessments and training have been completed it will just be a case of maintaining the systems and procedure that have been discussed and set up for you.

[Tom Sutton]

Thanks to you all.

However I think I should clarify my position. I am not an end user I just try to answer basic fire safety questions presented to me by MOP. I use the forum like the mess room table to obtain other people opinions before I respond to my questioner. (I can just about remember putting the world to rights over a victory brew.)