If you’re business has 5 or more people working from its premises, it is your responsibility to ensure that your premises are safe and that you have done everything in your power to ensure that staff are protected from the risk of fire.
By law (see government advice on fire safety assessments by clicking here), you’re required to carry out a fire risk assessment and ensure that this is re-visited regularly in order to keep any members of staff safe.
A fire risk assessment involves five key steps:
- Identify any and all fire hazards that are present at your premises – it may be worth contacting an expert to provide guidance on this and to ensure that you’ve left no stone unturned;
- Identify the people that are at risk from any fire hazards found in step one;
- Work out whether you can reduce the risk or, better yet, completely eradicate it;
- Record what you found during your assessment and prepare an emergency plan (taking into consideration any potential hazards that you found). It is then your duty to provide full training to your staff members regarding the emergency plan and any hazards found;
- Regularly review the fire safety plan and carry out regular fire risk assessments.
Fire safety is of huge importance to any organisation and devising a plan of action to minimise the risk of fire and deal with a fire emergency is absolutely vital.
It’s important to consider everything when it comes to fire safety, including:
- Emergency routes and exits to use in the event of a fire (including where staff should congregate in the event of an evacuation);
- Adequate fire detection and warning systems to allow for a fast response to any emergencies;
- Firefighting equipment;
- Whether there are dangerous/flammable substances being stored at the premises. If so, you should be taking measures to store them safely;
- An evacuation plan that considers the needs of vulnerable people such as the elderly, young children or disabled people;
- Relevant and regular training to ensure that all members of staff are working in line with your fire safety plans.
If your office is not up to safety standards we would be happy to help with a refurbishment to get it up to standard.
Carrying out the risk assessment
When it comes to fire risk assessments, you can either carry out the assessment yourself or you can hire in an expert assessor to help you with it.
We’d always recommend seeking the advice of an expert as we feel that fire safety is a matter that’s too important to potentially make mistakes with.
That being said, the government portal for fire assessments has several guides for different premises types when it comes to fire risk assessments.