NHS: Fire Prevention
(asked on 27th June 2017) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many full-time equivalent inspectors with responsibility for fire safety arrangements were employed by (a) NHS Improvement and (b) his Department in each year since 2009-10.
The National Health Service estate encompasses a huge, varied and complex set of buildings and facilities. Currently annual running costs of the NHS estates are over £8 billion, and NHS providers also spend some £3 billion annually on capital investment, in particular on maintaining and improving their estates and infrastructure. The use of resources to find and remedy fire safety issues remains an absolute priority.
NHS trusts decide locally how best to fulfil their fire safety obligations within appropriate legislation and guidance. This includes decisions about use of resources for health and safety, including fire safety work. NHS trusts are not required to give detailed breakdowns of their expenditure and staff deployed in this area, and the Department therefore does not hold this information.
The Department collects data on backlog maintenance (the capital investment needed to bring the estate and facilities up to an appropriate standard for quality and safety) annually from NHS trusts through its Estates Returns Information Collection. The data collected has not been amended centrally and its accuracy always remains the responsibility of the contributing NHS organisations. It can be found at:
As part of the response to the tragic events at the Grenfell Tower, actions have been implemented across the NHS to assess the risks of similar issues and ensure that the NHS estate is safe. Fire safety checks of NHS facilities are regularly undertaken in line with legislation and guidance. Hospitals are well prepared – each one has a tailored fire safety plan. But nothing is more important than the safety of patients and staff, so on a precautionary basis we have asked all hospitals to conduct additional checks.
Jim Mackey, Chief Executive of NHS Improvement instigated inspections by local fire and rescue services on 24 June 2017. Since then, the programme of inspections has continued across the NHS.
In addition, the CQC ensure healthcare organisations comply with the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, in particular Regulation 15 of the Act which includes provisions for ensuring that Trusts have appropriate Fire Safety systems in place.
The Department is working closely with colleagues across government on fire safety, and NHS Improvement, as the lead arm’s length body, is similarly co-operating with its fire and rescue service counterparts both nationally and locally.
The Department, NHS Improvement, and its predecessor bodies have no operational role in managing fire safety in the NHS estate, and therefore do not directly employ officials with any such responsibility for fire safety inspection. At an operational level the Trust Director with fire safety responsibility should ensure, through senior management and line management structures, that full staff participation in fire training and fire evacuation drills is maintained.