horizontal evacuation plan

[Lee]

I am new to the fire risk assessment business and I have been asked to do a fra on a care home that has had a enforcement notice from the fire authority, one being a inadequate fra and no escape plan. The fra I'm fine with but ive never done a evacuation plan. I need to add at this point the home is in 2 sections, the original building with a new build added.. A stay put policy is no good as there are alarm sounders throughout both  buildings, the care home staff say its a horizontal phased evacuation but no such plan is documented, so that's down to me. As both the FRA and the escape strategy will be looked at closely by the fire authority this has got me somewhat nervous. Can someone give me a example of one of these please so I can see how they are laid out and documented? Any help will be very much appreciated. My email address is leekevinbrown@sky.com again anything that gives me a idea of what the fire authority wants will be invaluable

Cheers

 

[AnthonyB]

If you are not experienced in the specialist area of healthcare fire risk assessments you should not be doing them. Get some experience in normal premises first, get some specialist training before going into this sector. 

An inadequate FRA carried out by a third party & poor evacuation procedures was one of the factors in the fatal Rosepark fire (https://www.ifsecglobal.com/rosepark-care-home-tragedy-lessons-learned/) & several third party risk assessors have been prosecuted (some with custodial sentences) for poor work.

Progressive Horizontal Evacuation is the methodology the care home is referring to, it's part of general measures for evacuation & shelter in healthcare premises (see https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/eprr-shelter-evacuation-guidance.pdf). As part of the plan residents have to have individual assessments in their ability to hear the alarm*, comprehend the alarm and their ability to mobilise and the levels of assistance required. Mental as well as physical capacity should be considered. This will determine the order of evacuation from a compartment and the necessity for a protected bedroom approach based on the resources available.

(* if necessary, it's not always required to provide the usual audibility in healthcare and care settings)

You will need to determine compartment sizes, travel distances and number of rooms per compartment, the adequacy of compartmentation and fire doors at the boundaries, adequacy of staff ratios and training and the adequacy of the resident assessment process.