Learning lessons and raising awareness

Following the fire at the Royal Marsden two and a half years ago (HEJ – February and March 2008), which saw the evacuation of nearly 400 staff and patients in 28 minutes, many questions asked then about fires in the health service still remain unanswered. Valerie Shawcross, (elected as Lambeth and Southwark’s representative on the London Assembly in 2000) who was at the time chair of London’s Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (and remains a member of the organisation today), admitted to the press at the time that “alarm bells should have been ringing” across the NHS, as she believed it was “simply not doing enough to safeguard staff and patients against fire”.

Anticipating danger

“It is really important that the health service takes fire safety more seriously than it has been doing,” she said at the time. “I think fire brigades up and down the country feel they have been grappling to get the attention of the health service to improve fire safety records. It is shocking actually that the fire brigade has to get to the position of serving enforcement notices on hospitals… hospitals are (potentially) dangerous places, and we do not want to wait until there has been an enormous fire and a number of people die. It is really important that we stop being reactive and we are far more proactive and anticipate danger.” In acknowledging these words of warning, two and a half years on is surely a long enough period of reflection in which to have seen measurable advances in good practice, and to have reviewed duties under the Fire Safety Order, which has now been in place for almost four years.