Hospitals and other healthcare facilities that do not regularly inspect, monitor, and, if necessary, clean, both their general ventilation ductwork and ‘often forgotten’ kitchen grease extract systems could not only be putting occupants’ health, and even lives, at risk, but could also face heavy financial penalties, significant damage to buildings, and even prosecution, a leading ductwork cleaning specialist has warned.
In many cases, Richard Norman, managing director, and Simon Vann, business development director, at Indepth Hygiene Services, told HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, the cost of having a grease extract ductwork system professionally cleaned could be ‘relatively insignificant’, while the ‘generally higher’ outlay required for thorough clean of a hospital-wide general ventilation ductwork system may well be spreadable over months, or even years.
I met with Richard Norman and Simon Vann at the Sutton, Surrey offices of Indepth Hygiene to discuss the importance of keeping both general hospital ventilation ductwork, and kitchen grease extract ducting, clean, just weeks after Simon Vann had addressed over 200 fire inspectors from the London Fire Brigade at one seminar, and members of IHEEM’s London branch at another, on the potential consequences of not having such systems regularly inspected and cleaned. Although Richard Norman acknowledged that some might see the pair’s exhortation to the Responsible Person within healthcare estates or other hospital teams to pay closer attention to such ductwork’s cleanliness as a thinly veiled attempt to drum up extra business, the Indepth Hygiene MD stressed that the company felt it had a moral imperative, as a leading ductwork cleaning specialist, to point out, to those responsible for maintaining such systems, the dangers of not properly looking after them. In the case of grease extract ductwork systems, which were often ‘hidden away’ behind ceilings and walls of kitchens in hospitals, care homes, and other healthcare facilities, Simon Vann told me that one LFB fire inspector had described uncleaned such systems as ‘probably the greatest danger to building occupants with catering facilities’. Although both my ‘interviewees’ acknowledged that more seasoned healthcare estates engineers would be aware of the importance of regularly inspecting and cleaning kitchen grease extract ductwork, there might, they believed, be a number who were less knowledgeable on the subject, and unaware, for instance, that they are legally obligated to undertake such work. a duty which, if not fulfilled, can lead to prosecution.
Many fires caused by dirty grease extract systems
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