The LWF Blog
Fire Engineering for Healthcare Premises – Examples of Fire-Engineered Healthcare – Part 65
December 13, 2021 12:56 pmLWF’s blog series for healthcare professionals aims to give information on best practice of fire safety in hospitals and other healthcare premises. In part 64 of Fire Engineering for Healthcare Premises, LWF began to look at a specific example of where fire engineering solutions have been used for healthcare premises, as per HTM 05-03, a care facility extension to an existing district general hospital. In part 65, we continue to look at that design and recommend reading the previous instalment to gain a full picture.
The extension building was sited in such a way that the Fire Service, with associated appliances, could gain access to three sides, with the fourth side being attached to the existing hospital building. Two hose reels were sited inside the building, one near a clothes store and the other by a day room.
The occupancy was estimated at 108 persons at any one time. This was based upon 24 patients per floor of the two-storey, an equal number of visitors and a total of 12 staff over the two floors. Given the nature of the facility, it was anticipated that the distribution would be even. Overnight, the occupancy figures would reduce to 48 patients, no visitors and 4 staff members over the two floors.
As the extension was intended to house older people with significant ambulatory issues, it indicated the necessity for a high degree of external help in order to effect a suitably prompt evacuation in a fire situation. The fire strategy should therefore provide a high level of fire precautions.
An assessment was undertaken to establish whether a fire engineered approach to fulfilling fire safety requirements would be preferable in terms of safety, attractiveness of design, or financially in providing a more cost-effective solution.
In order to undertake the assessment, a QDR team was formed to manage and develop the fire-engineered strategy. It is common for a healthcare building QDR team to comprise the following persons:
- Project manager
- Senior nursing manager responsible for type of occupancy
- Hospital fire-safety adviser
- Project architect
- Fire safety engineer
- Building control officer
- Fire service safety officer
In Part 66 of LWF’s blog series, LWF will look at how the QDR team approach the proposed fire safety strategy and what objectives they have. In the meantime, if you have any questions about this blog, or wish to discuss your own project with one of our fire engineers, please contact us.
Lawrence Webster Forrest has been working with their clients for over 25 years to produce innovative and exciting building projects. If you would like further information on how LWF and fire strategies could assist you, please contact LWF on freephone 0800 410 1130.
While care has been taken to ensure that information contained in LWF’s publications is true and correct at the time of publication, changes in circumstances after the time of publication may impact on the accuracy of this information.