To safeguard patients, visitors and staff in healthcare facilities, the design, installation and maintenance of fire protection measures is critical. One of those measures is fire doors. Here, Peter Barker, Technical Policy Manager at Warringtonfire, discusses their importance and the key considerations to ensure they will perform as required in the event of a fire.
Healthcare premises, whether they be a hospital or a nursing home, can present several challenges when it comes to fire protection. This is because of their size, complexity, and the many occupants within, all with differing needs. As such, having a clear and robust fire safety strategy is crucial.
Given that the complete evacuation of a healthcare site is often impractical, the common approach taken with fire safety for these buildings is progressive horizontal evacuation. The principle involves moving occupants from the fire-affected area through a fire-resisting compartment line to an adjoining area, which is designed to protect the occupants from fire and smoke. Providing it is safe to do so, the occupants remain in the fire safe area (refuge) until the fire is extinguished or, if necessary, further evacuation is required to another refuge.
In conjunction with other measures, fire-resistant compartment lines are a critical element of a fire safety strategy. If the fire-resistant compartment lines and fire doors cannot be relied upon, the evacuation strategy will be severely compromised.
Functions of Healthcare Fire Doors
A fire doorset specified for use in a hospital or healthcare facility will have to provide fire resistance to meet the functional requirements of Part B of the Building Regulations. According to HTM 05-02: Guidance in support of functional provisions for healthcare premises, unless pressurisation techniques complying with BS EN 12101-6 are used or the door is located within a cavity barrier, the doorset must also offer smoke control.
Aside from that, healthcare fire doors must adhere to many other performance and design requirements. For example, cross-corridor doorsets will need to withstand constant opening and closing, as well as resisting potential damage; doorsets into cleanrooms must be totally hygienic; and doors on high-security wards must safeguard patients and staff.
Moreover, doorsets must meet the functional requirements of Part M of the Building Regulations. For example, vision panels towards the leading edge of a door leaf require zones of visibility at specific heights from the floor.
As fire doors have multifunctional uses, fire safety training should be given for staff to explain their importance. This should be in the context of the overall fire strategy of the healthcare building and how misuse could compromise their performance.
Planning for maintenance
Ongoing maintenance of fire resisting doorsets should be incorporated in a programme of inspection. This will help with anticipating malfunction or defects before they occur and improve the longevity of fire protection elements.
Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) is often the typical route. This involves regular inspections dictated by relevant risk assessment, professional judgement and local circumstances.
Doors are often accidentally damaged by staff within the building transporting patients and goods, so encouraging staff to use doors in a responsible manner can mitigate the chances of this happening. This is especially important for personnel that use equipment and machinery that have a high risk of breaking the door, such as trolleys and beds.
Design features, such as electronic hold open devices, may also help protect doors from being repeatedly hit. These automatically release the doors on activation of a fire or smoke alarm. Such devices must be approved for use with the doorset designs on site and regularly checked to make sure they will release the door to its closed position in the event of fire.
Fixing fire doors
Should repair works be needed for fire doors, it is vital that the person undertaking these has a sound knowledge of fire-resisting doorsets and be familiar with the appropriate testing and certification process. Along with this, they need to be competent (i.e. have the skills, knowledge, experience, and behaviours) to ensure the performance of the doorset is maintained.
All too often, well intended repair works by improperly trained personnel can have a detrimental impact on the fire resistance performance of the door, whether replacing glazed elements without the correct fire rated glazing seals or fitting incompatible hardware.
Keeping records of the original supporting test evidence and/or third-party certification for the installed doorsets is also critical. This helps with maintenance programmes and means if future components like intumescent strips need replacing, they can be on a like-for-like basis.
Third-party certification for assurance
For peace of mind that both fire-resisting products and the personnel responsible for installing and maintaining them are up to standard, third-party certification schemes should be considered. While not mandated in the UK, NHS bodies are encouraged to utilise such schemes, through the advice given in HTM 05-02: Guidance in support of functional provisions for healthcare premises.
To support this, BM TRADA, sister company to Warringtonfire and part of the Element Materials Technology group, operates a ‘Fire Doors Explained’ training course. This provides training for staff who need to understand, manage, specify, install and maintain fire doors. The course covers the design, manufacture, and testing of fire doors as well, and can be delivered directly to staff at healthcare facilities, serving to provide confidence in the performance of a doorset throughout its operational lifetime.
For more information, please visit: https://www.bmtrada.com/training/fire-training/fire-doors-for-the-health-sector
