8.2 Escape During An Emergency
- In the event of fire or other evacuation emergency, disabled people, like everyone else, must always have safe means of escape. Under the Disability Discrimination Act, the University has a duty to make reasonable adjustments to provide for safe access and egress for all disabled people. "Disabled people" includes those who are temporarily disabled through injury;
- Lifts must not be used in the event of fire unless they meet special requirements for evacuation lifts under British Standard 5588: Part 8 "Code of practice for means of escape for disabled people" provides guidance on this;
- Heads of Schools and Departments must ensure that in the event of fire, the best practicable arrangements are in place for the evacuation of disabled people. This Code of Practice has been drawn up to assist in this process. In addition, both the Health Safety and Environment Advisor and the University Disability Officer are available to provide assistance in drawing up such plans;
- Every disabled student and member of staff must be clear as to how they evacuate from each and every building they occupy. To facilitate this Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans should be drawn up in conjunction with the Disability Officer. All regular disabled users must receive a copy of their Personal Evacuation Plan;
- If a building is one which has a large number of visitors, such as the MTC and PAC, then simple relevant emergency evacuation instructions must be handed to disabled visitors by reception staff or concert stewards, before entering the auditorium;
- For public events such as those held in the MTC, the organisers of the event must ensure that a sufficient number of trained people are designated and available to give assistance to disabled people in the event of an emergency;
- At such events, arrangements must be made to ensure that disabled people can be identified to those who are assigned to give assistance. This can be done by the allocation of suitable seating or with an in-out tally system at the entrance, so that emergency evacuation help teams - as in 6 above - can be alerted when necessary. Alternatively, any disabled person accompanied by an able bodied helper who is available to guide them to safety, should be made aware by staff, of what action to take in an emergency;
- In normal work areas the placing of restrictions on disabled people, eg. A requirement to be accompanied at all times by potential helpers, should be avoided wherever possible. In buildings with good fire compartmentation, it will usually be possible for disabled people to work unaccompanied provided there are other people in the vicinity who can offer help or who can raise the alarm when help arrives. However, disabled people who would require assistance to leave in an emergency should not use buildings at times (eg. Evenings and week-ends) when sufficient numbers of helpers are not present to assist their evacuation;
- Even when a building has good compartmentation, it should only be used by a disabled person when the area has a sufficient number of people to help and who are immediately at hand (eg. A student might use a particular floor for class teaching but not for private study);
- Disabled people should not use any part of a building where it would be difficult for them, even with help, to escape in the event of fire. Use of basements by wheelchair users, where there is no basement level exit, is an example of such an area. Activities which take place in such areas should be moved to a different location whenever this is reasonably practicable, in order to avoid the exclusion of people with a disability;
- For people who use a wheelchair or have difficulty with stairs,
evacuation arrangements should be based on horizontal movement away from a
fire, through fire-resisting doors to an area of refuge. BS 5588: Part 8
provides guidance on the layout requirements for this. Departmental / School
procedures should make provision, so far as reasonably practicable, for the
evacuation of wheelchair users to a place of safety outside the building.
Apart from cases where this is not reasonably practicable, procedures should
be based on the following principles:
- If there are insufficient helpers available, wheel chair users should move to a refuge point or stairwell away from any signs of smoke/fire - in which case the stairwell furthest away from the fire should be used - and wait at that point for assistance from the Fire Service;
- In the event of an emergency and particularly fire, any emergency party referred to in 6 above, will if available, immediately go to the assistance of any known disabled person and escort them to safety. In such cases the Fire Service must be informed of the location of a disabled person, in order that they will be able to effect rescue from the refuge point.
- The Health Safety and Environment Advisor is available to assist staff with regard to the interpretation and application of this Code of Practice to particular circumstances. Both the Health Safety and Environment Advisor and The University Disability Officer should be consulted as a matter of routine in any event where building modifications are undertaken, in order to ensue that provision has been made for a safe means of escape for disabled people.
Revised January 2006