Managing Fire Safety in Hospitals

• Regular fire risk assessments are essential to identify and manage fire risks in hospitals.
• Focusing on common fire hazards like faulty electrical equipment, cooking appliances and smoking is necessary to prevent fires.
• Compartmentation, alarm systems and good housekeeping help control and limit the spread of fire.
• Safe evacuation plans, including horizontal evacuation and regular fire drills, are vital to protecting patients who can’t move quickly.

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (FSO) is the primary fire safety legislation in England and Wales. It applies to all workplaces, including public and private hospitals.

Under the FSO, the “responsible person” (the individual in control of the premises) must ensure that all necessary “general fire precautions” are in place and working to protect everyone on-site. The first and most important step is to complete a fire risk assessment.

For hospitals, compliance with the FSO falls on the employer or trust, with oversight from the local fire and rescue authority.

Managing fire safety in hospitals is made up of three parts:

• Preventing fires from starting
• Preventing fires from growing out of control
• Ensuring everyone can evacuate safely

All of this comes back to your fire risk assessment – the systematic evaluation of fire hazards and risks on your premises and how they can be managed.

In short, a fire risk assessment is:

• Identifying fire hazards (anything that can start a fire)
• Assessing risks (potential for a fire to cause harm and how severe that harm will be)
• Deciding necessary precautions to eliminate risks or reduce them to safe levels
• Reviewing the findings and control measures regularly

(Read about fire risk assessments in more detail here.)

Responsible persons must see the fire risk assessment carried out but shouldn’t necessarily do the actual work themselves.

Fire risk assessments can only be done by “competent” people, individuals with the necessary experience, knowledge and training to do the job safely. So, for hospitals, it’s usually safer to appoint a competent third party with a background in fire safety to do the assessment.

You’ll also need to appoint competent people (or train employees) to help with everyday fire safety duties after the initial assessment.

Fire safety in hospitals is essential to protect patients, staff and visitors.

Preventing fires is always the top priority, but it’s not practical to eliminate every fire hazard in a busy healthcare setting. So, precautions are needed to contain fires before they spread, backed up by evacuation plans to get everyone out of the building safely if control measures fail.

Your focus should be on three key areas: stopping fires from starting, preventing them from spreading and making sure everyone can evacuate safely.

The best way to manage fire safety in hospitals is to prevent fires from starting. This means identifying potential ignition sources and stopping them from overheating or coming into contact with fuel.

Most hospital fires are caused by:

• Faulty electrical equipment
• Cooking appliances
• Smoking

By focusing on these common fire hazards, you can significantly reduce the likelihood of a fire breaking out​.

Electrical systems and medical equipment must be regularly checked and maintained in safe working order. Portable appliance testing (PAT) is one of the most straightforward ways to verify that electrical equipment is safe.

Proper staff training is equally important. All staff must know how to handle flammable materials and use equipment correctly. They should also be able to spot common fire hazards and deal with them accordingly or report to the relevant supervisor.

Kitchens are a major fire risk in hospitals because they’re consistently busy. Most kitchen fires start from unattended cooking, faulty appliances or improper handling of flammable foodstuffs like oils and fats.

To manage these risks, appliances must be regularly checked to ensure they’re in safe working order. They must also be cleaned to prevent the build-up of flammable grease or oil.

Kitchen staff should also be trained on fire safety procedures, including the proper use of firefighting equipment, since kitchen fires require fire blankets or specific dry powder extinguishers.

And any fire extinguishers and fire blankets should be obvious, accessible and regularly checked to ensure they’re ready to use in an emergency.

Smoking is a significant fire risk in hospitals, especially from patients or visitors. You need to enforce your strict no-smoking policy and provide designated smoking areas outside the building with suitable ashtrays.

You should check smoking areas regularly, particularly after visiting hours. Staff must also monitor patient rooms or other areas where smoking is prohibited, as the presence of medical oxygen increases the risk.

Once a fire starts, controlling its spread is critical to prevent it from threatening lives and property. The following methods can be implemented to contain and slow the spread of fire:

Fire compartmentation is one of the most effective methods of preventing fire spread in hospitals. By dividing the building into fire-resistant compartments, a fire can be contained within a limited area. Containing fires in this way buys more time for evacuation efforts and the emergency services to take control of the situation.

Each hospital room or unit should act as its own fire compartment, with fire-resistant walls, doors and ceilings. Regular maintenance of fire doors and fire-resistance barriers carried out by competent people is essential to ensure they’re working effectively.

Fire detection and alarm systems give staff an opportunity to locate and extinguish a fire before anyone’s at serious risk.

Smoke detectors, heat detectors and manual call points should be strategically placed throughout your building to provide early warning of a fire. These systems must be connected to the hospital’s central alarm system so all staff and emergency services are alerted immediately.

Fire dampers in a hospital’s ventilation system should close automatically when a fire is detected to prevent flames and smoke from spreading through the system into other parts of the building. All fire dampers should be regularly inspected and maintained to ensure they will activate correctly during a fire.

Good housekeeping isolates ignition sources from the fuel a fire needs to grow. Any waste materials should be disposed of immediately, and flammable substances should be stored in fire-resistant cabinets.

If a fire can’t be contained, everyone in the building needs to be able to evacuate safely. In hospitals where patients may be immobile or dependent on life-saving equipment, a well-thought-out evacuation plan can mean the difference between life and death.

Hospitals must have signposted and unobstructed escape routes and fire exits. General evacuation plans should be placed around the hospital for visitors who won’t be aware of the building’s layout or escape routes.

Regular checks should be conducted to ensure these routes remain clear of obstructions, and signs must be visible and easy to understand.

Regular fire drills give staff (and you) an opportunity to work through the practical challenges posed by a hospital evacuation.

Drills should account for a range of scenarios, including how to evacuate patients who cannot move themselves or are dependent on medical equipment. Staff who have had opportunities to rehearse evacuation plans will be better equipped to respond calmly and appropriately when a real fire occurs.

In many healthcare settings, immediate vertical evacuation (moving people downstairs) isn’t possible. Instead, a horizontal evacuation strategy is used.

This approach involves moving patients away from the fire to “safe zones” on the same floor. Safe zones should be fire-resistant and equipped to provide continued care for patients until a full evacuation is possible.

The advice in this guide aligns with Fire Safety Risk Assessment in Healthcare Premises – the government’s official guidance on fire safety in hospitals. You can find the full document here.

Effective fire safety training is essential for protecting both staff and patients.

Our online Fire Safety Courses cover everything from fire risk assessments to fire warden responsibilities, so your staff has the knowledge to prevent and respond to fire emergencies.

Each course is flexible, affordable and accessible from any device, making it easy to keep your team trained and compliant with regulations. Enrol in our online Fire Safety Courses here.