National fire safety services for hospitals

Hospitals are complex structures which require substantial careful planning when it comes to fire protection. There are many activities undertaken within a hospital building which present a fire risk and therefore each hazard will need to be dealt with individually.

For example the evacuation of a hospital is much more complicated than a normal office space due to the nature of the work which takes place. It will involve moving staff, patients who are immobile and hospital visitors.

Guidance on fire safety for medical centres such as hospitals is provided by the Department of Health in its Health Technical Memorandum (HTM) 05-03.

It advises that “Staff should be aware of:

• fire-alarm call points;
• the location of first-aid fire-fighting appliances;
• the boundaries of the fire compartments;
• fire doors; and
• escape routes.”

Fire protection and control needs to include identifying risks across a range of different healthcare environments. For instance, the HTM instructs that:

“Appropriate fire detection should be installed in plantrooms, medical gas manifold rooms and readyuse medical gas cylinder stores in healthcare premises provided with an automatic fire detection system.”

Here at Surefire, with our national fire safety services, we are able to respond to the critical demands provided by hospitals so that the correct fire protection equipment and systems are in place. We can provide a comprehensive range of solutions for fire prevention, detection, suppression and evacuation.

It is our aim to ensure the highest quality fire protection services are administered to keep hospital staff, patients and visitors safe. If you require assistance in upgrading your hospital fire safety systems then please get in touch.