Fire safety for healthcare premises

Patient vulnerability is the starting point, but it looks different here to how it looks in a care home. Most people attending a GP surgery, dental practice or outpatient clinic are ambulant and can leave under their own steam once alerted, so this is generally a daytime, waking-occupancy risk rather than a sleeping one. The complication is that some patients cannot move quickly, some are in the middle of a procedure that cannot simply be stopped mid-way, and some are unfamiliar with the building and reliant entirely on staff and signage to find their way out.

Treatment interruption is a genuine consideration that a standard office assessment would not need to think about. A patient part-way through a dental procedure, an injection or a minor treatment cannot always be moved the moment an alarm activates, which is why staff training and a clear, rehearsed procedure for pausing treatment safely matter as much as the physical fire precautions themselves.

Waiting areas concentrate a different kind of risk again. People sit in a confined space for a period of time, often including elderly patients, parents with young children, and people who are unwell or in discomfort, and many are visiting for the first time and would not know an alternative route out if the main entrance were blocked. Clear escape signage and a layout that does not funnel everyone through a single narrow route matter more here than in a staff-only working environment.

Where a practice keeps medical gases such as oxygen on site, whether cylinders in a treatment room or a small store, that adds an ignition and fire-severity factor a general fire risk assessment needs to identify and account for, alongside the electrical load of diagnostic and treatment equipment. Where a healthcare premises shares a building with other occupiers, such as a pharmacy, another practice or unrelated commercial units, escape routes, alarm coverage and fire door provision often need to work across those shared parts as well as within the practice itself.

Detection has to reach people across consultation rooms, treatment rooms, waiting areas and back-office space, and alert staff quickly enough to manage patients who may need assistance to leave. A fire alarm system designed for a healthcare premises, in line with BS 5839-1, needs a layout and zoning that reflects how the building is actually used, so that staff can tell which part of the premises an activation relates to without walking the whole building to find out. Once a system is installed, our fire alarm servicing and maintenance keeps it tested to the schedule BS 5839-1 sets out, which matters in a premises that cannot simply close for a morning to accommodate routine testing without some disruption to patient appointments.

Fire doors do useful work in a healthcare premises by holding back fire and smoke long enough for patients and staff to reach a final exit, particularly where treatment areas need to stay separated from waiting areas and shared parts of a building. Our fire doors service covers supply, installation and inspection of door sets rated to what the premises needs. The most common issue we find in clinical settings is a fire door propped open between a corridor and a treatment room for ease of access between patients, which removes its fire-resisting function for as long as it stays open.

A practice’s patient numbers, services and layout can all change over time, whether through a refurbishment, an extension, a new treatment service being introduced or a change in how consultation and waiting space is used. Reviewing your fire risk assessment after a change like this, and keeping servicing records up to date across alarms, doors, lighting and extinguishers, keeps a healthcare premises’ fire safety arrangements matched to how it actually operates.

Tell us about your healthcare premises, the services you provide and how the building is laid out, and we will talk you through what it needs. We work with healthcare premises across our service locations, including Birmingham, Walsall, Worcester, Worcestershire, Gloucester, Gloucestershire, South Gloucestershire, Herefordshire.