Nurse call system goes up in smoke

[Dominic]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-20234001

[Wiz]

How do you know it was the Nurse call system?

[Dominic]

I was speaking with the fire officer for the Trust

[Wiz]

It didn't mention anything about the nurse call system in the report, so I was confused as to how you knew. Now we know.

The report did mention the 'electrical switch room' so I presume it was actually the nurse call system power supply that was the source of the problem. This is normally the most likely component of such a system to catch fire, so it wouldn't be much of a surprise. Far more interesting if a patient/nurse call lead had spontaneously combusted

Was the fire automatically detected by the fire alarm system?

[Dominic]

Yes Wiz, have not had full details yet but I believe it was the PSU that was the problem. One of those occasions where it should have been replaced years ago but wasnt because it still worked. 
The alarm was activated by the smoke detector and the cupboard remained closed until the patients were moved and the Fire service arrived and opened it. I think it was more fumes than smoke which caused the evacuation.

[Wiz]

Great news!

So it seems that a properly designed, installed, commissioned and serviced automatic fire detection alarm operated in a manner that provided an early enough warning of the result of a rare problem (nurse call power supply failure causing a fire) and potentially saved lives. Hats off to the everybody involved (including those who devised the Standards everybody else worked to).

[SamFIRT]

Seems about it.