Reducing the risk, managing safety

Fire safety in healthcare premises has always been a challenge to those that discharge this duty. Statutory compliance should be a matter of course, but in an ever increasingly challenged NHS, even this is not a given. While the NHS is driven by managing very complex risk to deliver cutting edge healthcare, providers cannot be risk averse. Which risk, however, takes priority? Here Peter Aldridge, fire and corporate services manager at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, and Secretary to the National Association of Healthcare Fire Officers (NAHFO) – which will this month and next jointly stage fire safety seminars with IHEEM; see page 8 – considers the key issues, with input from a fire officer at a leading mental health and community Trust.

As a fire safety professional with nearly 30 years’ fire safety experience, I accept that the likelihood of fire in healthcare is low, and that other competing risks will often be risk rated much higher. The challenge to those who are accountable in healthcare, such as a Board, is to identify how best to prioritise risk. It is likely that, due to financial challenges, fire-related budgets will diminish or, at best, stay the same. So, all this said, is the future all about further innovative thinking in fire risk mitigation, fire risk reduction, and more appetite for risk? 

Over the past few years there has been a review of Firecode, with Health Technical Memoranda HTM 05-01 and HTM 05-02 both being subject to a review – in the latter’s case, in fact, two reviews. As many readers will be aware, the Department of Health (DH) recently held a consultation on the effectiveness of HTMs generally – and not just Firecode; where the responsibility for the guidance sits, and whether it should be free. A future article might perhaps cover the potential removal of Firecode altogether. How, though, does all this help us?