Having a comprehensive evacuation plan ensures procedures for evacuating are explicitly outlined. In order for these plans to be effective, training is also essential.
Evacuation plans should outline the roles of those responsible for ensuring safe evacuation. Training helps those people to fully understand their roles in an emergency situation, ensuring safe and efficient evacuation of all occupants from a building in the event of an emergency.
Individual roles may include the operation of emergency equipment, such as evacuation chairs. Those responsible will require adequate training in order to understand where the equipment is located, as well as when and how it should be used.
Training will help to build users’ confidence, ensuring they use equipment safely and correctly should an emergency occur. This will safeguard all occupants’ access to successful evacuation in emergency situations, including those with mobility impairments.
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order (2005) outlines how the ‘responsible person’, or people, must ensure that all employees understand their exit route in an evacuation. It also requires employees to have sufficient training regarding the actions they need to take to ensure safe and efficient evacuation.
Ultimately, training ensures everyone within a building fully understands its evacuation procedures. This ensures the responsible person can safely and correctly use any equipment to assist with safe means of exit for all building occupants.
To find out more about how you can improve your team’s training and education in relation to emergency evacuation, please visit www.evacchair.co.uk/training or alternatively, call the Evac+Chair Team on 0121 706 6744.
