West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust – Fire Safety

Project Background

In April 2014 Oakleaf were engaged by West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust to conduct fire compartmentation surveys across its 3 sites, consisting of approximately 98,000 square meters. The requirement of the project was to undertake invasive inspection work of all areas to identify breaches of compartmentation and sub compartmentation, and to produce a schedule of defects which could then be used for tendering purposes.

The Trust had no plans showing areas of compartmentation in place, so the first task for the Oakleaf fire team was to establish the correct locations for compartmentation, sub compartmentation, and the location of hazard rooms which require to be enclosed within fire resisting construction. Once this had been established, and agreed with the Trusts fire officer, inspections commenced. At all times a minimum of 2 members of the Oakleaf team were on site, in order to ensure the health and safety of patients, staff and the surveying team.

Throughout this project we have had to work closely with the Trust Project Manager, the Trust fire officer, and the staff around the site in order to gain access to all areas. This has involved out of hours working in order to access the main theatres and the maternity theatres.

The overall output from the Fire Compartmentation survey is an Excel document with a schedule of the breaches found during the survey; these are linked to CAD drawings with show a unique reference number for each defect. Every breach has a photograph showing the defect.

CUSTOMER

West Hertfordshire Hospital Trust

Sector

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