Fire Safety in Care Homes and Other Care and Support Settings: Why It Requires More Than Compliance
Care homes and other care and support settings remain some of the most challenging environments in which to manage fire safety.
In most workplaces, our expectation in the event of a fire is relatively straightforward: raise the alarm and evacuate people to a place of safety.
In a care or support setting, it may not be that simple.
People using these services may have limited mobility, cognitive or communication needs, sensory differences, complex health needs or other factors that affect how they recognise, respond to or evacuate during an emergency.
Some may require assistance from one or more members of staff simply to move to another part of the building. Others may rely upon specialist equipment or require continuous care.
Some may be physically capable of leaving the building but, because of their individual needs, may not recognise the alarm, understand what is happening or respond to instructions in the way we might ordinarily expect.
And, of course, a fire does not conveniently wait until a service is fully staffed during the day.
It may happen at 2:30 in the morning.
That is why effective fire safety in care homes and other care and support settings requires far more than an alarm system, some fire doors and an annual fire risk assessment.
It requires an understanding of the people, the building and how the service actually operates.
Why Fire Safety in Care and Support Settings Is Different
The people using care and support services can be amongst those most vulnerable in the event of a fire. That vulnerability can take many forms.
For some people it will be primarily physical. They may be unable to walk independently or require significant assistance to move.
For others, the challenge may relate to cognition, communication or their response to an unfamiliar and potentially distressing situation.
An alarm that immediately communicates “leave the building” to one person may have a very different effect on somebody with a learning disability, dementia, autism or other additional support needs.
This is why simply considering whether somebody is physically capable of walking to an exit does not necessarily tell us whether they can safely self-evacuate.The statistics also provide some important context.
Government figures for England for the year ending March 2025 showed that people aged 80 and over experienced a fire-related fatality rate of 13.8 per million people, compared with 4.5 per million across all ages.
The causes of fire within care environments are not necessarily unusual either. London Fire Brigade identifies cooking and cookers as accounting for 41% of fires in residential care homes, followed by kitchen appliances and smoking-related causes.
The challenge is therefore not simply preventing a fire from occurring.
It is ensuring that, if one does occur, the building, staff and emergency arrangements are capable of protecting people who may not be able to protect themselves.
Evacuation Isn't Always About Getting Everybody Outside
This is one of the fundamental differences between fire safety in care and support environments and many other workplaces.
Immediately moving everybody outside may not always be the safest or most practical response.
Some people may be able to evacuate independently or with relatively little assistance.
Others may be unable to walk.
Some may require two members of staff to assist them.
A person living with dementia may become confused or distressed when an alarm sounds or when staff attempt to move them from familiar surroundings.
Someone with autism or a learning disability may experience difficulties associated with the alarm itself, changes to routine, communication, sensory overload or moving into an unfamiliar environment.
Others may be dependent upon specialist equipment, oxygen therapy or continuing care.
Trying to evacuate everybody from the building simultaneously can therefore introduce significant additional challenges and, in some circumstances, additional risk.
This is why many appropriately designed care and healthcare premises use an evacuation strategy based upon Progressive Horizontal Evacuation.
Rather than immediately moving everybody outside, people can initially be moved away from the fire into an adjoining fire-protected compartment.
But that strategy only works if the building and the arrangements supporting it work.''
The Building Is Part of the Evacuation Strategy
Compartmentation is fundamental to fire safety in many care environments.
Fire-resisting walls, floors and doors are intended to restrict the spread of fire and smoke, providing protected areas into which people can be progressively evacuated.
But compartmentation isn't something that can simply be installed and forgotten.
A damaged fire door matters.
So does an unprotected opening through a compartment wall where services have subsequently been installed.
Alterations to the building can compromise fire separation without necessarily being obvious during everyday operation.
If an evacuation strategy relies upon a compartment providing protection, there needs to be confidence that the compartment will perform as intended when it is actually needed.
And even perfect compartmentation cannot evacuate or support a person during an emergency.
That requires people.
The Evacuation Plan Has to Reflect the Individual
Emergency evacuation arrangements need to reflect the actual needs of the people using the service.
That is where Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans — PEEPs — become particularly important.
But having a PEEP in someone's file is not, by itself, enough. People change.
A person who could walk with assistance six months ago may now require two members of staff or specialist equipment.
Someone's cognitive ability may change.Their clinical needs may change.
A change in medication, mobility, behaviour, communication needs or specialist equipment may affect how they should be supported during an emergency. And some changes may be less obvious.
A person may remain physically capable of walking but become less able to understand an alarm, follow instructions or cope with the disruption and unfamiliarity associated with an evacuation.
The evacuation arrangements therefore need to reflect the person as they are today, rather than simply how they were when they first entered the service.
And Then There Is Staffing
An evacuation strategy can look entirely reasonable on paper.
But there is another question that needs to be asked:
Can the staff who are actually present deliver it?
This becomes particularly important overnight.
There are commonly fewer staff on duty. Some may be agency or temporary staff who are less familiar with the building, the people being supported or the emergency arrangements.
Meanwhile, people may be asleep and become disorientated or distressed when suddenly woken.
Some may require two members of staff to move them safely.
Others may require specialist equipment or particular approaches to communication and support.
The fire resistance of the compartment hasn't changed simply because it is night-time.
But the challenge of evacuating the people within it may have changed considerably.
A well-written evacuation plan is therefore only part of the solution.
The real test is whether it is achievable under the conditions in which it may actually have to be used.
Fire Safety Is More Than Paperwork
Fire risk assessments, PEEPs, evacuation strategies, maintenance records and training documentation are all important.
But paperwork alone doesn't make a care or support service safe. Good fire safety comes from understanding how all of those elements work together.
Is the compartmentation effective?
Are the fire doors being maintained?
Do the PEEPs still reflect people's current needs?
Are sufficient staff available to implement the evacuation strategy?
Do staff understand what they are expected to do?
Do they understand how the individual people they support may respond during an emergency?
And have the arrangements been tested sufficiently to give confidence that they will actually work?
Those are practical questions.
And they are particularly important in environments where the people being protected may be dependent upon others to keep them safe.
Practical, Proportionate and Centred on People
There is something particularly important about fire safety within care and support environments.
The people we are trying to protect cannot simply be viewed as occupants who need moving from A to B.
For somebody living in residential care, this is their home.
For somebody receiving support, the people around them, their routines and familiar environment may be extremely important to their wellbeing and sense of security.
During an emergency they may be frightened, confused, distressed or entirely dependent upon the people supporting them.
Successful fire safety therefore isn't necessarily measured by how quickly everybody can be moved outside.
It is about ensuring that people can be protected and, where necessary, moved safely, appropriately and in accordance with their individual needs, while maintaining the care, support and dignity they depend upon.
That requires the people, the building and the evacuation strategy to work together.
Good fire safety in care homes and other care and support settings isn't simply about complying with legislation.
It is about creating practical, proportionate and well-managed arrangements that work for the people they are designed to protect.
Continuing the Series
In the next articles in this series, we'll look more closely at three areas that are fundamental to making those arrangements work in practice:
Progressive Horizontal Evacuation, and why getting everybody outside immediately isn't always the safest strategy.
Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPs), and why they should be living plans rather than documents completed and forgotten.
And night-time staffing, including one of the most important questions we can ask of any evacuation strategy: Can the people on duty actually deliver it?
If this article has prompted you to reflect on the fire safety or evacuation arrangements within your own care or support service, we're always happy to have a conversation.
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