Concerns over serious fire risks at care homes

Concerns over serious fire risks at care homes

According to the BBC, Health and safety inspector James Reid has been giving evidence to the fatal accident inquiry in to the fire at the Rosepark home in Uddingston in 2004.

He said in a report he had compiled a year before he had not included key findings that caused him “concern”. But he said he had discussed the issues raised with the owners of the care homes

The blaze broke out in a cupboard on 31^st January 2004, killing fourteen residents and injuring four more.

Mr Reid was employed on a retainer basis by the owners of the premises to carry out health and safety inspections and offer recommendations for improvements in January 2003.

The report appears to have indicated that there were inadequate controls to reduce the risk of a fire but Mr Reid omitted information that could have helped prevent, or lessen the impact of the fire.

Amongst the things missing from the report included:

He admitted that failing to inspect documents relating to what training and information staff had been given in the event of a fire meant that he could not have “a sufficient base for answering in the affirmative questions about sufficient and adequate safety training” and also that “any risk assessment which did not address risks to the residents could not be a sufficient and suitable risk assessment.”

Risk assessments are a vital tool in helping to analyse possible health and safety issues and provide ways to combat them and make the environment safer.

It appears that Mr Reid’s report missed out several key areas of information, although he states that he went over a large amount of this verbally with the owners. With an insufficient safety report having been conducted, it will come as no surprise that this incident occurred and that there was an attempt to prosecute the home owners, Thomas, Anne and Alan Balmer, over alleged safety breaches in 2007.