New fire safety and risk assessment rules affecting all non-domestic premises in England and Wales came into force on October 1, 2006. If you need additional information on how you can ensure you are meeting your obligations under the new fire safety/risk assessment rules, feel free to browse this site, or alternatively, you can call your local fire brigade.

Under the new rules, you must make sure you carry out a fire-risk assessment, although you can pass this task to some other competent person. As far as is reasonably practical, the responsible person, either on his or her own or with any other responsible person, must make sure that everyone on the premises, or nearby, can escape safely if there is a fire.

Risk assessment is perhaps the most essential component of health and safety since it allows you to learn what can cause harm to people in your office or place of work. Hazards are those things in and around the workplace that can cause harm to staff, volunteers, visitors and other members of the public. Look around the building to find those things you consider a significant hazard.

Keep in mind that sometimes it is easy to ignore some hazards because they are familiar. It is also useful to ask people who use the premises if they know of anything they consider to be a fire hazard. Consider the people that use the building and how the hazard might affect them. Even if they use your premises every day, customers and service personnel must be thought of as members of the public. It is also important to consider how the hazard might cause an injury.

Risk is the chance that someone could be harmed. As a guide, “low” risks do not need significant attention. “Medium” risks need some attention to bring them to a “low” level. Of course, “high” risks should be dealt with immediately. Risks assessments must be done in writing if you have five or more employees, and this includes volunteers. Assessments should be reviewed periodically to ensure that they remain valid.

The assessment might also need to be reviewed if there are major changes, and this should be seen as part of the planning process of any new project or change. The guidelines above can help you with the fire risk assessment but you may need added information, particularly if you have large or intricate premises.

With some level of proper training or experience, a responsible person should be able to do a fire risk assessment. More complex premises will probably need to be assessed by a person who has comprehensive training or experience in fire risk assessment.

The risk assessment will help you make a decision on the nature and the extent of the fire precautions you need to provide. There are six other legal duties you need to know:

• You must designate people to take on any special roles required under your emergency plan where it is necessary to preserve the safety of your employees.
• You must seek advice from your employees about the appointment of people to fulfil particular roles relating to fire safety and about suggestions for improving fire precautions.
• You must notify other employers who have workplaces in the building of any significant risks you found which might affect the safety of their employees – and co-operate with them about the measures proposed to reduce/control those risks.
• If you are not an employer but have any control of premises that contain more than one workplace, you are also responsible for ensuring that the requirements of the fire regulations are complied with in those parts you have control over.
• You must establish an appropriate means of calling emergency services, and make sure they can be contacted easily.
• The law requires your employees to cooperate with you to ensure the workplace is safe from fire and its effects, and not to do anything that will place themselves and other people at risk.

Teen workers can be assets to your workforce, but they are more vulnerable and you must ensure their health and safety at work. One way to look after teens’ and other workers’ health and safety at work is to provide training to ensure that each employee recognises hazards and is competent in safe work practices. Stress safety, particularly among first-line supervisors, since they have the greatest opportunity to influence teens and their work habits.

The basis of British health and safety law is the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The obligations employees have to themselves and each other as well as the general responsibilities that companies have toward workers and members of the public are all set out in the Act. To put it bluntly, health and safety is about preventing injury to people. There are lots of different ways in which someone can be harmed in the workplace, from accidents with people working at height to work-related illness or stress.

Companies have been dealing with Health and Safety for a number of years now because of the variety of regulations that exist. The main piece of legislation that covers health and safety is the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The Health and Safety at Work Act seeks to:

• Secure the health, safety and welfare of persons at work
• Protect other persons such as customers, service providers, etc. against risks to health and safety arising out of or in connection with the activities of people at work
• Controlling the keeping and use of explosive or highly flammable or otherwise dangerous substances, and generally preventing the unlawful acquisition, possession and use of such substances, and
• Controlling the emission into the atmosphere of noxious or offensive substances from premises of any class

Your duties under health and safety and fire law are compulsory, regardless of the size of the premises or workforce. The requirements of regulations can seem bewildering. Many people worry about their liability in case of accidents. The person suffering the injuries might wish to take legal action for compensation should there be an accident. In addition to the legal health and safety requirements, there is also a moral objective for ensuring people’s safety.

Acting safely means taking into consideration the possible hazardous consequences of actions and changing behaviour in order to avoid them. Improving safety behaviour helps everyone. There are numerous types of intervention to improve safety behaviour. They include:

• Training
• Performance
• Creating reward systems based on observed behaviour and/or outcomes
• Designing new instruction systems
• Influencing attitudes and beliefs
• Encouraging improved supervisor/manager behaviour
• Engineering or altering manufacturing systems

Ensuring the health and safety of everyone is clearly common sense and every workplace must take action. Most people now expect their safety to be considered as they enter a building. Any business with over 5 employees is legally required to have a complete health and safety at work strategy. The policy statement should have a general declaration of intent, outlining in broad terms the organisation’s overall viewpoint relative to the management of health and safety, including reference to the broad responsibilities of both managers and workforce.

There is a three-step procedure for dealing with workplace hazards. First they must be recognised, then they must be assessed, and finally, if necessary, they must be controlled. Most of the hazards you will find in your health and safety at work assessment will target a particular part of the body such as the lungs, skin or liver. Removing occupational hazards is one way of improving worker protection.

New pieces of fire prevention equipment and methods for fire prevention seem to become available every day. Basic approaches to safety design recognize that fire prevention is a significant aspect of general safety. Every employer now has to do a fire risk assessment, which should include a complete evaluation of the causes of, impact from, and consequences of fire in a particular location.

Fire prevention and management deals with the avoidance, detection and putting out of fires, in addition to such secondary activities as studies on the causes of fire, instruction of employees about fire hazards, and the maintenance and improvement of fire-fighting equipment. Little official attention was given to fire prevention prior to World War II.
The solution to fire safety is essentially to prevent fire from starting in the first place, but an understanding of what causes fire is necessary to recognize how to avoid it.

The basic things required for fire include: some type of fuel, oxygen and heat. The seat of a fire can easily reach hundreds, if not thousands of degrees Celsius. However, the chief hazard with fire is not the high temperature or the flames, but the smoke. A potential fire source is anything that gets hot, gives off sparks or has naked flames, whether in the usual working situation or if a defect should develop. There is a greater risk of fire when these things are placed close to flammable materials than if they were separated.

The key to preventing fires in the workplace comes down to preparation and practice. Here’s where to start:

• Make a plan – get together with your staff and talk about how you might get out if the fire is in different places.
• Psychological preparation – you have to live and envisage the fire from every area of your workplace.
• Practice often – in a real fire, deadly smoke will obscure your path to safety, so you must know your way out by heart.

Fire Safety in the Workplace

The first “rule” of fire prevention – avoiding placing things that could catch fire close to the things that could ignite the fire or removing the ignition source completely – is at times difficult or impossible to put into practice, in which case we need to use a second method: fire proofing.

Preventing fire from starting mainly calls for you to be mindful of the things that could catch fire and those things that could start a fire and then taking action to reduce the possibilities as low as possible. Immediately follow these procedures if you notice a fire or see/smell smoke:

1. Notify the local fire brigade.
2. Trigger the building alarm.
3. If you can leave the building safely, do so, but first isolate the area by closing windows and doors.
4. If possible, shut down equipment in the immediate area.
5. Use a portable fire extinguisher if possible and if you have received the proper training, to:
(i) Assist yourself to evacuate
(ii) Assist others to evacuate
(iii) Control a small fire
6. Leave the area of the fire immediately and walk, do not run to the exit and designated gathering spot; do not collect personal or official items.
7. You should give the fire/police crews details of the problem upon their arrival.

Put your policies in writing and include the fire prevention and safety practices into your staff manual and training schedules. One way to recruit staff in the process of overseeing risk, to allocate tasks for fire prevention and safety, and at the same time to satisfy the requirements of the fire safety order is to set up a safety committee. Keep in mind, however, that these procedures will work best when they are practised and reviewed regularly with the staff.

Some facilities are required to keep a minimum level of emergency lighting along the entire means of egress whenever the building is occupied. The means of egress may be more than just the aisles and main corridors, and emergency lighting may have to extend from each exit to every location where people might normally be found. A lot of of these spaces can be vacant for large portions of the day.

Any building is dark if there is a power failure. Emergency lighting will also be necessary if there is a fire in the building, as this could cut the electrical supply. The emergency lighting you provide in your workplace will depend on the size of the building. There might not be any need for emergency lighting if you do not use the building in the night and there are windows to let in natural light.

You may be able to use a few torches kept in convenient places for small buildings where few people work. Some torches have a charger, which plugs into a mains socket, and these torches usually come on automatically when the mains power fails. Self-contained emergency light fittings contain a battery charger, a rechargeable battery and a light source, which is usually an 8-watt fluorescent tube. Some units have spotlights, and these are ideal for taller rooms or large spaces

Emergency lighting units are available in two kinds: “non-maintained” (which come on only in a power failure) or “maintained” (which can be on all the time). Non-maintained units are more common, but maintained lights should be installed for exits and exit signs. The chief reason for emergency lighting is to ensure people can find an exit safely. It is not necessary to use exit sign emergency lights, but this would usually be recommended in addition to normal emergency lighting.

Emergency lighting almost always consists of unattractive boxes fixed to ceilings and walls. The first question to ask is whether emergency lighting is really necessary at all. There may be no need to supply any emergency lighting for a building if there is no public access after dark and it is otherwise unoccupied. Non-maintained, three-hour emergency exit box lights, which sit on the floor and are plugged into the nearest socket outlet, can provide temporary emergency lighting.

Photoluminescent technology is another option that can lead occupants to safety when the electricity goes out and a building must be evacuated. The purpose of this technology is not the illumination of a space, but rather to provide definition so people can orient themselves. Powered only by ambient light, photoluminescent safety signs and path markers glow in the dark similar to children’s novelty decals found at any craft store but at a much higher level.

Lights should be installed along corridors, near fire exits and fire extinguishers or fire alarm call points. It might not be possible to install normal emergency lighting in some buildings because it might interfere with historic features. Even if you have emergency lighting installed in larger workplaces, we recommend that you make torches available to staff.

All emergency lights need to be checked periodically. All mains powered units need to be tested for a functional test for about 10 minutes every month. Switches are usually wired into the lighting circuits to help you test the emergency lights. If you use torches, simply check that they work by briefly turning on the torch on a weekly basis and change the batteries every few months to make sure that they aren’t flat when you need to use them. You need to keep a record of when you tested your emergency lights.

Though power outages don’t happen that often, it’s vital that when they do occur, your building is suitably equipped with emergency lighting that can illuminate a path of safety for the people inside. There are many different emergency lighting options for facilities; choices range from torches to simple wall-mounted units to complex systems integrated into your building’s primary lighting system.