Fire doors in care home - how to hold open?

[Guest Josie]

Hi

I would like some advise, please. I work in a care home and would like to know where I can get information on whom to contact when someone has a question about fire prevention. We are not too sure where we stand about fire prevention.

Two residents always have their bedroom doors openday and night, as they feel hot, where do we stand legally, in case there is a real fire? We do a fire drill every week. Do we get the residents to sign a disclimer to say that they take full responsible if there is a real fire? Please advise as we are getting no where.

Many thanks

[Safelincs]

Dear Josie

Your care home ought to carry out a fire risk assessment, preferably with a professional fire risk assessor, as the legislations re care homes can be quite complicated. Only recently a court decided that all bedroom doors must be fire doors and have

1) door closers

2) fire door retainers (to hold the doors open legally). In the case of a fire, these doors close automatically

Kind Regards

Harry

[Tom Sutton]

I would like some advise, please. I work in a care home and would like to know where I can get information on whom to contact when someone has a question about fire prevention. We are not too sure where we stand about fire prevention.

To add to what Harry has said, the person responsible for the implementation of The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 is the person designated the Responsible Person and can be the employer, owner or the person who has control of the premises and the local Fire and Rescue Service is the enforcing authority. The DCLG provides guides for the RP and in your case the main guide would be the Residential care premises which helps the RP to for fill his/her duties. Check out http://www.firesafe....ety-order-2005/ for more information.