Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether all hospitals and NHS buildings are fully compliant with fire and building regulations; and if he will ensure that all NHS properties will be checked and signed-off as safe.

National Health Service organisations in England are locally responsible for the safety of their estate, including in relation to fire. The Department publishes comprehensive and up to date guidance on fire safety, including the ‘Firecode’ suite of Health Technical Memorandum (HTM) documents, to support NHS organisations in England to comply with legislation relating to fire safety:

HTM 05-01: Managing healthcare fire safety: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/managing-healthcare-fire-safety

HTM 05-02: Firecode Guidance in support of functional provisions (Fire safety in the design of healthcare premises): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-in-support-of-functional-provisions-for-healthcare-premises

HTM 05-03: Fire safety measures for health sector buildings: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/suite-of-guidance-on-fire-safety-throughout-healthcare-premises-parts-a-to-m

Fire safety is taken extremely seriously in the NHS and because of the professionalism and dedication of staff across the entire NHS estate, the number of fire incidents is extremely low, given the complexity and size of the health estate (about 25 million square metres of occupied floor area) and its level of clinical activity.

To ensure that the lessons from the Grenfell Tower fire incident are learned, the Department is working with all NHS organisations to ensure that any appropriate action is taken as soon as possible.