Out of Hours News

Many companies rent office space in large buildings. One such company, a design consultancy, was based on the 7th floor of a large office block in Birmingham city centre.

One of their clients came to visit them to see their studio and look at the marketing campaign they were preparing for his business. Unfortunately, only five minutes into their meeting the fire alarm sounded and the building had to be evacuated.

This left the client and the design consultancy with a major problem; the client was a wheelchair user and the alarm had disabled the lifts. There was no safe way the design consultancy could think of to evacuate the client and they did not know the "safe spots" in the building.

Fortunately, it was a false alarm and the alarm was re-set after a few minutes. However, this highlights the importance of every company having a PEEPS policy (a Personal Emergency Egress Plan).

The design consultancy could have easily developed a policy to avoid this. It was also the responsibility of the company to safely evacuate their client rather than the building owners. However, building owners do have a certain responsibility including monitoring and recording the arrival and departure of disabled people.

A PEEPS policy is a mandatory requirement for all companies under the Health and Safety Act.

The Meeting Room

A studio in Birmingham provides meeting rooms and facilities of an evening to local businesses. The studio had passed its accessibility audit with flying colours.

On one Tuesday evening, a wheelchair user attended a seminar in one of the meeting rooms. He had no difficulty getting into the building, however at 19:00 when he came to leave his way was barred. The security guard had, as usual, locked one of the double doors at the entrance to the building. This prevented the participant from leaving the building. It took reception twenty minutes to find the security guard to unlock the door and let the attendee out. If there had been a fire this would have caused major difficulties.

This story highlights how a process can destroy the safety and accessibility of a location, even after a thorough audit. Conversely, many minor process changes can allow everyone to access and safely use the facilities and services.

The Conference

A major organisation organised a large conference at one of the Birmingham's larger venues. Most of the day involved a group of 120 attendees listening to guest speakers. One of the attendees had hearing difficulties and could not make out most of the talks as his hearing aid amplified everything in the room making it impossible to distinguish the speaker from the background noise.

This situation could have been simply solved by supplying the attendee with a mobile induction loop (which cost about £30).

More Articles

Practical Advice For Businesses

The Rented Office

The Meeting Room

The Conference

DDA Awarness DAY

Partners