Hi Smoking
A good place to start is to do a seach on google- try" disabled evacuation " and take a look at the health and safety policies of UK universites and colleges- many post their policies on evacuation of persons with special needs and guidance on writing peeps on the web site. There are many examples of good practice from which you could select one to meet the needs of your organisation. I always do a trawl for good practice and then customise to meet my needs.
Then take a look at your buildings, management policy, students/ staff needs and come up with a practical solution that works.
Do you have evacuation lifts?
Do you have refuges?
Do you have fire wardens?
Do you already have evacuation chairs?
Are all persons with special needs allocated buddies or are tutors made responsible for them?
Nobody should be left alone and without communication in a refuge. Communication systems to each refuge area are one approach- these range from phones to dedicated intercom systems. But I prefer accompaniment by staff if possible, backed up by fire wardens with radio communication to the Fire Marshall.
If evacuation chairs are provided a core of staff will need training and the fire marshall needs to be able to direct those persons to the appropriate location. In many cases their access will be from outside the building into the foot of the stairs - and often these doors will be secured by panic bolts. So if the disabled person is on their own who would let the rescuers into the building?
Another key consideration is the balancing of duties of care- The fire brigades will ask you to provide robust policies for the evacuation of all building users to an ultimate place of safety outside the building. This would be utopia and whilst the responsible person should make reasonable provision and an emergency plan that meets normal forseeable needs there will always be special situations that will require the assistance of the fire and rescue service. for example, someone who, for behaviour or health reasons cannot be transferred to an evacuation chair. I think it reasonable to have a bottom line that recognises this will occur from time to time and to ensure that such a person is accompanied by a fire warden, with comms to the marshall, and reported to the Fire brigade on arrival so the judgement may be made on the need to evacuate with their assistance or not.
The hardest decision comes when you have to consider excluding somebody from a part of the building or from access to services for H&S reasons. I think it reasonable to balance hazard and risk, severity/ likelihood with the risk to the individuals rights and freedoms and I do sometimes recommend policies which fall short of full evacuation of all building users to a place of ultimate safety.
I have worked on a similar scheme this week for a large retail store and if you would like a copy of the evacuation plan and the guidance I have given on PEEPs then email me and I will gladly forward a copy.
Finally- dont forget that the DDA covers people with temporary disabilities and impairments as well as permanent ones.
