Neil Ashdown, general manager of the Fire Door Inspection Scheme (FDIS), considers the key steps for ensuring that fire doors are correctly specified, installed, maintained, inspected, and, when necessary, repaired, to enable them to effectively fulfil their role.
There are few environments more demanding than the healthcare sector when it comes to making sure that fire-resisting and escape doors are correctly maintained so as to be fit for purpose. The issues, of course, are as varied as the range of care and services provided by the many different healthcare establishments. They range from building users being unfamiliar with the layout of the site, to damage caused by hospital trolleys, and the added complication of the tendency towards a ‘stay put’ policy in the event of a fire – making the compartmentation of smoke and flames even more important than in most other environments.
In this article we will look at the legal obligations of those involved in providing and operating healthcare buildings, as well as discussing some of the technical issues and the type of education and assistance available to help building operators meet those legal and social obligations.
Regulation
2006 saw the introduction of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, or ‘RRO’ as it is commonly called. This piece of legislation changed everything, placing responsibility for fire safety measures in all types of buildings, except for inside people’s private homes, firmly with the building operator and building owner. It places the legal obligation with the ‘Responsible Person’, and defines this person as:
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