The Royal Liverpool University Hospital is the largest hospital in Merseyside and Cheshire. It has over 40 wards and more than 710 beds. The Emergency Department at the hospital is the largest in the country.
Mike Farrell, a fire safety advisor at the hospital, ensures that the Hospital Trust complies with health and safety as well as fire safety regulations. With hundreds of staff working within this large critical environment it is not surprising that issues arose with regards to fire doors and the movement of patients within the building. The heavy fire doors were making it difficult for staff to push patients from one department to another. Mike Farrell said "Day-to-day, the staff at the hospital are constantly walking through entrances with trolleys and pushing beds so they need easy access. We found that doors were being wedged open as they are very heavy and difficult to get through."
Wedging a fire door open is illegal and poses a great risk to patients and the building should a fire break out. In order to ensure the safety of everyone within the building it was essential that Mr Farrell found a solution that would make opening the fire doors easier for staff and maintained fire safety compliance.
Mr Farrell commented "To make sure we remain compliant, we sought a solution. We looked for a product that would keep our fire doors open, create a safer environment with the reassurance that the doors will close on the alarm. The way that the doors are situated and the incompatibility of the walls in our High Dependency ward meant that we couldn’t have a magnetic device, so we found Freedor."
"Freedor just goes over the top of the door, it’s out of the way" said Mike. Staff at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital can now walk with ease through the fire doors, even when they are pushing a patient through who is on a bed or stretcher. The Trust now comply with fire safety regulations and have found a cost effective way to allow heavy fire doors to swing freely and close should the fire alarm be triggered.
Mike commented that "Following a trial, our staff were so pleased that we had Freedors installed on the entrance to the ward. It’s a financially viable option being cost effective as the product is wireless. It has made life so much easier for all our staff, they have easier access and it requires minimal effort to open and close the doors when they need to."
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