Waking Watch

During 2017, following the tragic events of Grenfell Tower our Local Authority, and housing clients, required us to develop supportive services while assessments of building fire safety where conducted, and any improvements were implemented. 

Since 2017 Parkguard have continuously delivered these services across London and Home Counties working closely with numerous statutory bodies, large housing providers and Fire & Rescue Services (FRS). We have gained considerable experience and developed significant expertise from being at the forefront of this emerging and ever developing joint response to fire prevention in multiple occupancy homes.

The complexity of the interactions between people, buildings and fire is such that no single set of criteria can be applied to all types of buildings in all circumstances. As such we deliver tailored responses in line with current best practice to ensure optimum risk mitigation, reassurance, confidence and peace of mind for residents going through a fire safety improvement processes. The general purpose of our waking watch services are threefold:

Assessment

• Once it has been decided that a waking watch is an appropriate response, based on the buildings specific needs, the needs of the residents,  landlord and what the staff would be required to do, we then determine the sufficient number of staff required and the staff training requirements in order to safeguard residents. Sharing the experience we have gained, we collectively consider the fire safety measures holistically, as opposed to each measure in isolation. We then build a waking watch that enables us to efficiently and effectively mitigate risk.

On-going prevention activity:

• Reviewing and contributing to the enhancement of the buildings general fire precautions
• Establishing and familiarising staff with all Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEP) for individual residents who may not be able to reach an ultimate place of safety unaided or within a satisfactory period of time in the event of any emergency
• Establishing continuous real-time fault reporting processes to designated maintenance teams as issues arise
• Delivering consistent, active resident engagement regarding any concerns they have and enabling quick-time reporting to relevant departments and housing staff
• Ensuring regular staff governance and compliance
• Delivering accountable and tracked patrols of common areas and all floors
• Identifying and removing any combustible items that may enable ignition, or may contribute to fire spread in the event of a fire
• Ensuring all routes are free from obstructions that may hinder escape and FRS access
• Running regular simultaneous evacuation tests to confirm that the time from the detection of the fire, to alerting all residents, does not exceed required time.
• Using practice drills, adaptions to environment factors and current information to identify any process issues, or revision to inform, and enable continuous improvements
• Working with the FRS during scheduled review and implementing any required amendments to the delivery

Early detection, alerting and supporting the process

• Deliver specific patrolling routines monitoring for any signs of fire
• Where fire is suspected, establish location & confirm
• Summon the FRS and manually initiate fire alarm sounder or alarm system
• Ensure all residents are alerted to begin simultaneous evacuation
• Take appropriate action as required by the management strategy and PEEP’s list
• Meet the FRS on arrival and support the delivery of the simultaneous evacuation strategy in the event of a fire.