Quakers Hill Nursing Home Fire

Lessons Learned

When it comes to evacuations due to fire, time is always of the essence especially in healthcare facilities. In commercial buildings the vast majority of occupants are capable of evacuating the building themselves and the Emergency Control Organisation (ECO) is tasked with ensuring this is done safely and efficiently. However, in nursing homes and hospitals the majority of patients will require assistance. Delays due to a lack of information or poor communication can have disastrous consequences.

The Quakers Hill Nursing Home, like all accredited facilities, met every legal requirement with regards to fire safety. However, the coroner found that there were aspects of the procedures followed and the Fire Indicator Panel (FIP) that could be improved for the future benefit of all healthcare facilities.

Areas Identified

1. A staff member needed to go to the FIP to check for the location of the fire, then relay this information to all staff. This introduced delays in initiating the evacuation.
2. The FIP only displayed the most recent alarm and the staff member attending needed to manually scroll down to see if there were other alarms. Staff and emergency services assumed there was only one fire.
3. Only one appliance was dispatched in response to the automated alarm sent by the FIP. A 000 call was necessary to let emergency services know that there was in fact a fire and additional resources would be required. In the confusion no 000 call was placed.

A Luminous Alarm Management solution can solve these issues, as well as improving the efficiency and reliability of the response to an emergency.

Luminous will notify all staff immediately of the location of the fire or multiple locations if that were the case.

• Staff no longer need to go to the FIP.
• Staff working near the alarm source can quickly determine if it is a false alarm or a fire and call 000 immediately if it is the latter.
• Notifications can be sent by voice call to any phone, via sms, email, pager or other communication channel available in the facility.
• In addition to the location(s) of the fire, staff can be provided with additional information to remind them of critical tasks. E.g. “Fire alarm second floor, room 204. IF FIRE, CALL 000”

In an emergency Luminous supports staff by automating the dissemination of critical information, improving communications and providing them with prompts for critical tasks. Post event, Luminous provides a full audit report of the emergency response. A log of all alarms, who was called and if/when they responded. This allows for vital feedback to the ECO to improve future responses to critical events.