There is a statutory obligation on the occupiers of premises to conduct emergency evacuation exercises at least once per year. Many organisations simply conduct haphazard fire drills where the fire alarm is activated, everyone leaves for a few minutes and then returns. Such drills do not actually test the sites ability to safely get everyone out and account for every single member of staff, visitor and contractor.
Cuttle Consulting recently were engaged by a Pharma/Medical client in the Midlands to facilitate a structured emergency evacuation exercise for them. The aim of the exercise was to refresh and test the facilities Emergency Evacuation Plan and Fire Wardens. The objectives set to achieve that aim were (1) Test the fire alarm system to ensure that all occupants of the facility could hear and respond to the audible alarm (2) Test the facilities Emergency Evacuation Plan (3) Safe evacuation of all persons to their nominated assembly points (4) Activation of the facilities Fire Warden Team (5) Designation of Roll-Callers at each Assembly Point (6) Generation of accurate roll-call printout (7) Correct interpretation of Fire Panel to identify source of alarm and (8) Safe reoccupation of facility under supervision of the Lead Fire Warden.
We conducted a debrief after the exercise which highlighted some issues and gaps in the sites emergency evacuation plan.
Cuttle Consulting then prepared a post-exercise report for the client with recommendations on how to make the emergency evacuation plan as robust as possible. This client has always placed the safety and well being of its staff above all other considerations and are a pleasure to work with.