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Do you realise the importance of carrying out fire safety checks? With automated fire safety solutions, you can ensure fire safety risk assessment information is recorded using online forms, saving time consuming paper processes, ensuring compliance and ultimately saving lives.

 

What is a fire safety risk assessment?

A fire safety risk assessment is a process involving the evaluation of factors that determine the prevention from fire, it involves understanding the potential risks and improving your fire safety precautions to keep people or a property safe. Manual, paper-based records can cause inefficiencies in fire risk assessments including the risk of losing essential data and not adhering to those all-important compliance standards. Organisations should consider moving to online fire risk assessment processes to improve the way they are carrying out assessments. Using digital forms will ensure an efficient process and improved compliance.

 

Why are fire safety risk assessments required?

Carrying out fire risk assessments is essential to protect premises and safeguard residents from risk of fire. Whether it’s a tenancy building or the work place environment, as an employer and owner you must ensure fire safety checks are in place to prevent injuries, saving lives and structures if carried out properly. Due to the critical implications fire can cause and the need to be compliant, it is vital to have information recorded. Failure to carry out legal fire risk responsibilities could consequence in businesses facing a fine.

 

There are various fire safety legislations in place across the UK which require a fire risk assessment to be carried out on all commercial and residential premises. These legislations include The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which covers England and Wales, in Scotland, the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005, supported by the Fire Safety (Scotland) Regulations 2006. In Northern Ireland, fire safety is covered under the Fire and Rescue Services (Northern Ireland) Order 2006 and the Fire Safety Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2010.

 

What do fire safety assessments include?

So, what do fire safety risk assessments include? As part of a tenancy agreement, landlords have a duty of care to provide fire checks on residential properties. Likewise, local government authorities are required to complete risk assessments on buildings and properties. Assessments will take into consideration various requirements for attention in a building or property and its grounds. These include ensuring smoke or carbon monoxide alarms are installed, ensuring there is clear access to fire doors or exits, reviewing storage areas within the building and making sure they are not likely to cause fire, taking into consideration building refurbishment and redecoration, reviewing external windows and combustible or flammable materials, ensuring there are fire extinguishers in place and also making sure everyone living or working in the building is aware of the evacuation plan.

 

Fire safety high rise building

How do people record fire risk assessments?

Ensuring the information is recorded in a fire safety risk assessment is vital. These records will form crucial parts of evidence in the event of a fire and will help aid fire professionals in doing their jobs.  Fire safety risk assessments can be carried out manually using paper-based forms, however the trouble with this is that they can be quite time consuming and also heightens the risk of losing critical data. Paper processes are not the most effective way for seamless sharing of information. When a record is scanned to a colleague, they cannot easily copy and paste any information from a pdf document, making it a timely exercise.

However, with specialist fire safety software solutions now available, Fire Inspectors or people carrying out fire risk assessments now have the option to introduce a more automated process using interactive forms, replacing paper-based inspections with digital forms and reports. These solutions can deliver improved efficiency and ensure compliance. Information can be easily recorded at the location, ensuring all information is accurate and easily updated via a mobile device. Using these types of digital forms will ensure compliance is met as information is accessible and accountable. All information is tracked, and image and video capture are helpful should the worst come to the worst or if there is legal action to be taken such as a health and safety tribunal or insurance claim. Such software solutions can create automated reports based on key KPI’s relevant to your organisation. In addition to this, notifications for re-inspection and appointment reminders for tenants can also be set up for future inspections.

 

 

 

FireCheck

With Totalmobile’s FireCheck, our specialised solution will help ensure your properties remain compliant by enabling the efficient recording of fire risk assessments and tenancy audits. With FireCheck, you can resolve time consuming processes with improved data entry and easy forms. You can easily remove duplication and improve compliance with up-to-date fire risk assessments and tenancy audits. Information is stored in the system and enables reminders for future checks. The interactive forms and reports will help you make informed decisions on whether you’ve taken sufficient precautions to prevent fire hazards or whether you need to implement more to minimise risk.

FireCheck iPad

For further information about FireCheck and how compliance can be improved to the benefit of your tenants, download our brochure .

Totalmobile

Totalmobile is a Field Service Management (FSM) provider passionate about making work and the lives of mobile workers better. An established market leader with 375 staff across the UK and Ireland, Totalmobile supports over 1,000 organisations and 500,000 workers to transform the delivery of field services and experience an exceptional return on investment.