A false alarm

A false fire alarm for any organisation is, at best, an irritation. For hospitals and other healthcare organisations it is much more – a potentially dangerous and even life-threatening situation if patients have to be evacuated.
    
When a fire alarm sounds, for most people this stimulates a ‘danger’ mode, triggering an awareness of their surroundings and an almost automatic checklist which assesses the situation – “where is the nearest exit?” “Can I smell smoke?” “I should use the stairs rather than the lift shouldn’t I?“ “Do I have time to grab my bag?” However, the hospital environment is different. For the patient, who may well be immobile – perhaps a leg in traction or connected to monitoring or drug-dispensing equipment – the ‘flight’ instinct may well be stimulated but the option to take their own actions is effectively removed. They have to place their safety in the hands of the hospital staff, relying on them to move them to a safe area.
    
Hospitals are mindful of the potential panic a fire alarm can cause in this situation and, in intensive therapy and coronary care units, for example, audible alarms are often replaced by a buzzer and flashing beacon in the nursing station. Nevertheless, should an evacuation be deemed necessary, each of the patients will need to be moved, along with any necessary equipment – estimates suggest it could take up to 10 minutes to move a single patient. If all this is required and the alarm proves to be a false one, then the extensive disruption and potential consequences for patient care have been for nothing.

Automatic detection
That is not to argue against automatic fire detection systems – their role in an environment where an early warning is more important than ever means that they are widely employed in hospitals and healthcare premises, the vast majority providing a swift and reliable means of detecting and alerting of fire. In most cases, certainly in hospitals, those fire detection systems are connected to Alarm Receiving Centres (ARCs) or directly to the fire and rescue service to ensure the quickest of responses to an emergency situation. This means that in addition to the problems caused on site for the hospital’s staff and patients, false alarms (or ‘unwanted fire signals’ as they are referred to within the fire protection community) waste fire service resources.
    
Given that a large hospital will involve a risk-based response which requires attendance by a number of fire appliances, it also impacts on the fire cover available for other genuine incidents. Add to that the fact that the credibility of the fire detection system is damaged every time there is a false activation and it is easy to see why reducing false alarms remains a key objective for the fire protection industry.

What causes false alarms?
The cause of false alarms are numerous, from malicious activation through to people operating the alarm in good faith but there is no actual fire. An example of the scale of the problem in some hospitals is shown by the experience of the University Hospital of North Staffs which in 2008 concluded that only six of the 185 fire calls made were real fires. The hospital’s annual fire safety report showed that four of the genuine fires were in electrical equipment with the other two breaking out in waste bins and skips. Of the remaining alarms, 34 were made with good intent (including some triggered by people calling 999 after seeing fumes through windows from people smoking and mistakenly suspecting a fire). Most of the rest were triggered by smoke alarms being set off accidentally.
    
The accidental activation of smoke alarms is undoubtedly one of the major causes of ‘false’ alarms but, in reality many are not false alarms in the strictest sense. Toasters are one of the most common causes, leading to a ban from wards in two major hospitals in north Wales a few years ago which resulted in false fire alarms falling by 75 in the first six months after the toasters were removed. It is important to recognise that in such instances it is not the detection equipment that is at fault – it is doing its job correctly, ie detecting the presence of smoke. It is the design of the system or, more commonly, lack of thought or knowledge in the people that are using the toasters that is causing the alarm – although it might appear to be common sense not to use a toaster in the immediate vicinity of a smoke detector, it is surprising how often it occurs.
    
Whatever the reason and irrespective of any discussion regarding people error versus equipment malfunction, false alarms remain a potentially significant problem in the hospital environment.

New CFOA Policy
The Fire Industry Association (FIA), has been working closely with the fire and rescue services and other partners for a number of years to reduce false alarms.
    
This resulted in the publication in August 2008 of a new document by the Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA) entitled CFOA Policy for the reduction of false alarms & unwanted fire signals. The policy was implemented on 1 September, 2008 and applies to all premises identified and regulated under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order, 2005 (RRFSO) that are, or will be, installed with automatic fire detection and fire alarm systems.
    
The individual Fire & Rescue authorities do make allowances for certain higher life risk premises such as hospitals but, in essence, the document is intended to focus attention on false alarms and how premises that are persistent offenders can address the issue.
    
There are two distinct elements that the policy seeks to address: (a) false alarms which may contribute to fire safety issues; and (b) unwanted fire signals which impact on the fire services’ resources.
    
One of the main objectives of the policy is to provide the brigades with different levels of response, all of which are defined within the document, thereby offering specific procedures to follow when faced with varying degrees of unwanted fire signals.
    
It also includes protocols for Telecare premises and ARCs, which are widely employed by hospitals to provide a swift response to an emergency situation, as well as defining and providing options for call filtering. The Policy encourages a culture change in the building owner/occupier/responsible person, promoting the importance of effective management of fire safety systems in reducing the incidences of false alarms.
    
Martin Harvey, Chairman of the FIA, has been heavily involved in the development of the Policy, along with myself as FIA technical manager. As the FIA we have long recognised the vital importance that third party certification has to play in ensuring quality in design, installation and maintenance of fire alarm systems. Some problems arise because of the particularly difficult challenges of the environment being protected and in such cases close co-operation between the system owner, the system designer/installer, the fire service and, where applicable, the ARC, can reap real benefits. However, given that our research shows the majority of false and unwanted alarms arise from the ten per cent of so called rogue systems, the strong recommendation that the Policy gives to certification is a vitally important factor in driving down the figures.

On-site call filtering
It is clear that the ideal place to prevent false alarms from being transmitted to the fire service as unwanted fire signals is on-site, a point well illustrated by the case study on Stoke Mandeville Hospital. This process is known as on-site call filtering and should be carried out using a risk-based approach and safe working practices. This is where the most accurate information can be gained to ascertain the cause of the alarm activation. It is here where the fire protection companies can play a key role by ensuring that systems are correctly designed and installed and issues relating to false alarms are swiftly corrected.
    
A copy of the Policy can be downloaded from the FIA website: www.fia.uk.com (click on the ‘Information’ button on the home page main menu and then access through ‘Guides & Codes’).

Stoke Mandeville Hospital
The world renowned National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital has been helped by FIA member Kentec Electronics Ltd to tackle their chronic problem of false alarms.
   
Buckinghamshire Fire & Recue Services advised that there was a serious problem for both themselves and the hospital. Following the building of an extension to the hospital in 2006, the number of false alarms rose to 149 from about 90 a year between 2004 and 2006. Every time the alarm system activated, their risk-based response was to send two fire appliances. Invariably, when they arrived they would discover a false alarm. A single smoke detector had been activated, usually by a cooking activity such as toast burning – a relatively innocuous event but one which nevertheless wastes fire service resources and causes disruption to the efficient running of the hospital.
   
A redevelopment was funded by a PFI (Private Finance Initiative) and the installers chose an open protocol system that interfaces with Kentec’s Syncro AS control panels, which allow for more accurate interrogation and interpretation of possible fire events within the hospital.
   
Working with the local NHS Trust and Stoke Mandeville Hospital’s fire safety adviser, a fire safety system was developed that enables the hospital’s specially trained fire wardens to investigate the cause of an alarm signal, on the activation of one smoke detector, which either confirms or cancels the 999 call. This ensures that only 999 calls are made in the event of a real fire.
   
However, should a heat detector, break glass call point or more than one smoke detector be activated, then the Fire & Rescue Service is summoned immediately.
   
One of the main requirements of the new system was clarity of distributed intelligence, with the system required to give a view of the whole system at each control panel, so allowing an alarm or fault on the system to be viewed locally. In addition, with one single comprehensive system throughout the complex, training in fire safety is much simplified as nursing staff understand the system wherever they are located on site.
   
The disruption for staff and patients is now greatly reduced and the burden placed on the fire and rescue services has also been alleviated, with a reduction of some 80 per cent in the number of false alarms.
   
This project illustrates the FIA’s ‘bottom-up’ strategy whereby the Association and their members work with the Fire and Rescue Service, the responsible person/end user to resolve the issues of false alarms and publish the results as case studies. The intention is to help others resolve their false alarm issues by demonstrating what may be achieved.
   
If any hospital needs help to resolve false alarm issues, the FIA is available to provide expert and impartial advice.

For more information
Tel: 020 8549 5855
E-mail: info@fia.uk.com
Web: www.fia.uk.com