Fire warden software proves a worthwhile investment

The Fire Safety advisor at Croydon Health Services NHS Trust in south-west London has praised a software system that enables closer, more effective control of the Trust’s Fire Warden network. The system not only tracks the location and number of fire wardens around the Trust’s sites, and provides a framework for fire safety checks, but also delivers and collects fire safety information from wardens, and reports inspection outcomes for appropriate action. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, met with Jamie Keay, a former London Fire Brigade firefighter, to discuss how the system – from Digital Missives – has improved fire safety compliance at one of south London’s busiest acute hospitals.

The software – Fire Compliance Online (FCO) – is a recent introduction from specialist software house, Digital Missives, and has been in use at Croydon University Hospital for three years. Digital Missives is well-known in healthcare engineering for its popular web-based water compliance management software, L8guard (see panel on page 46).

Digital Missives describes FCO as ‘an innovative new software system that enables fire officers to manage fire warden distribution, local fire safety checks, and full fire risk assessments, across multiple sites and buildings’. There are currently two modules: the Fire Wardens module, and the Fire Risk Assessment module. The Fire Wardens module was first trialled at Croydon University Hospital, and has been successfully in use there for the past two years. The Fire Risk Assessment module has been developed with input from the Croydon University Hospital fire team, and will be launched as part of the complete Fire Compliance Online software suite this month.