With ERIC 2022/2023 data highlighting an 18 per cent rise in fires recorded by NHS Trusts across England in 2022/23 – to 1,372 – equating to almost four fires a day across the NHS, Assa Abloy Opening Solutions UK & Ireland is emphasising ‘the utmost importance’ of correct fire door specification, installation, and ongoing maintenance with inspections.
Brian Sofley, MD of Assa Abloy Opening Solutions UK & Ireland Door Group, said: “The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires that healthcare organisations undertake risk assessments to identify the general fire precautions needed to safeguard occupants in case of fire, including their safe means of escape.
“Healthcare buildings can present highly specific requirements for fire doorsets, with particularly varied legislation and building regulations surrounding hospital fire doors. With fire protection systems failing time and time again, however, more needs to be done.”
To aid compliant hospital fire door specification, Assa Abloy’s Openings Studio BIM application integrates with design software to create and visualise openings for complete door, frame, and hardware schedules and specifications. The company said: “This enables seamless extraction of door design intent and all relevant interfaces, to assist the development of complete door requirements that meet building regulations. Product information, performance data, and budget information, are captured within the BIM design environment.
Through real-time, collaborative working, these designs can be validated for compliance, functional performance, and aesthetics. They are presented as 3D views that can be fully re-integrated into the overall project design.”
With linked internal systems, Assa Abloy uses use this final schedule of information to manufacture the complete doorset – including leaf, frame, and all specified hardware.
The Openings Studio mobile app can also directly access this data for use during door installation, ‘ensuring full validity of the finished product prior to project completion’.
The app also incorporates a ‘check box’ system to carry out and capture detailed inspections based on the specific details of each door included in the schedule. This report validates if a door has remained compliant, or identifies what elements need to be corrected or replaced to return the product to the standard required.
Door Group, a unit of Assa Abloy Opening Solutions, also provides fully comprehensive inspections which can be undertaken every three, four, six, or 12 months to meet specific requirements.