The following premises will still recieve a response to fire alarms operating once it has been ascertained that there is no response from anybody on site at the time of the call, these include:
- Sheltered housing or assisted living premises
- Residential care and nursing homes
All other premises providing sleeping such as private/domestic flats, guest houses, hotels, and houses in multiple occupation (HMO) will be subject to a call challenge procedure.
We have also deemed a number of other property types as high risk. These will receive a response but again this will be after the call challenging procedure has been carried out. These premises are broadly:
- Primary care trust hospitals and private hospitals
- Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH) sites
- Heritage premises
- Critical national Infrastructure
- Educational establishments
- Premises that do not fall into the above criteria but are locally determined to be unsuitable for call challenging
Competent persons should be appointed to assist in the investigation of the alarms activation and they should have an understanding of the alarm system and be confident in their ability to carry out the investigation.
You must ensure you have an effective investigation procedure:
- Review your alarm management strategy. Do you have a delayed alarm so that you can investigate the cause before calling the fire service?
- Ensure regular maintenance of your fire alarm.
- Ensure you have a suitable number of responsible people and key holders who can attend the premises out of hours.
- If you are linked to an Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) ensure they have the correct contact details for the premises, opening hours and the key holder’s details.
- Investigate all false alarms and look at what you can do to stop them happening again.
- Put in place a strategy to investigate the cause of the activation the moment it happen so that your staff can quickly identify false alarms, reset the system and return to work.