Darren Tubb, senior consultant for fire safety specialist Inspectas, explains where care home managers and proprietors ought to focus their fire safety strategy in order to stay within the law while delivering best practice for the safety of staff and residents
The care home sector, by its very nature, is vulnerable to fire incidents, with enquires from care home managers to Inspectas about fire safety planning and management having seen a near two-thirds increase over the past few months. Dated and extended buildings can also provide a fire safety hazard, with 75 per cent of our care home customers occupying buildings more than 35 years old, and 80 per cent of its newer build projects also needing retrospective fire safety strategies.
Fire safety awareness training — from mandatory new starter training to additional fire safety training for night staff — is also reported to be lacking. The impact of the Grenfell Tower tragedy on changes to fire legislation and building regulations, emphasising the 'fire strategy' conditions, imposes additional challenges for care home owners and managers.
Care budgets are stretched to the limit; therefore, balancing both care compliance and property compliance is extremely difficult. Compounded by the increase in National Insurance and underfunding from central and local government, the sector has faced many years of challenge.
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