Helps fire safety teams prioritise action and investment
Medway NHS Foundation Trust, which operates Medway Maritime Hospital, has introduced a new digital system to manage fire safety information and improve its understanding of fire risks across the hospital estate.
By taking data from multiple sources, the BIS Lens system created by data experts BIS Consult, provides the Trust’s Fire Safety Group with a new strategic tool designed to bring together and analyse fire risk assessment information centrally, in a digital format.
In one example, using the tool to examine fire assessments collectively revealed how a single, estate-wide approach to cabling issues would be more cost effective than several individual repairs.
Medway NHS Foundation Trust is a single-site hospital Trust based in Gillingham, Kent serving more than 427,000 people across Medway and Swale.
Neil McElduff, Director of Estates and Facilities for the Trust, said: “The new system is a significant step in our shift towards digital. It underpins the strategic direction of fire safety management and will help maintain a safe environment across our hospital. The work to date shows the system’s potential to drive similar insights for other critical areas of risk and compliance across the Trust.”
New insights generated from interactive dashboards will support fire safety review meetings and help guide the Trust’s investment decisions by making it easier to identify priority risks, outstanding actions and recurring themes across the whole estate, such as further fire risk assessments, fire door replacement or new evacuation plans.
Like many NHS estates, the Trust’s fire safety information was previously held across numerous separate records and documents, making it difficult to analyse information collectively.
Jason Brittin, Capital Projects/Programme Manager for the Trust, who led the project, said: “The BIS Consult solution has demonstrated how we can transform the way we manage fire safety information across our hospital estate. The improved visibility of risk will help our fire safety and estates teams prioritise action, support regulatory compliance and make more efficient investment decisions.”
The new structured digital approach supports NHS guidance for managing fire safety, including HTM 05-03, which explains how NHS organisations should assess fire risk and HTM 05-01, which provides the wider framework for managing fire safety across healthcare buildings. It also supports the ‘Golden thread’ principle of keeping accurate and accessible fire safety information available throughout the life of a building.
BIS Consult has previously worked on similar risk management systems for Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and Airedale General Hospital, tackling asset condition, asbestos and RAAC.
Nick Campbell-Voegt, Managing Director of BIS Consult, said: “The digital tool enables Medway NHS Foundation Trust to take a more connected, data-driven approach to risk reduction. By developing a single source of truth, it gives teams clearer priorities and ultimately helps create safer hospitals. Other areas of NHS estate risk can benefit from the same method, including water safety and structural condition of buildings or other assets.”
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