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You are here: Home > News > Call for fire safety to be reviewed at Leicester health centres

Call for fire safety to be reviewed at Leicester health centres


By Kimberley Slack - 04/01/2012

A patients' pressure group based in Leicester has called for fire safety reviews to be carried out at all of the city's health centres.

It follows an incident at the Belgrave Health Centre in Leicester last month, when a fire alarm was triggered but a disabled person could not be immediately evacuated from the second floor of the building.

According to a report by the Leicester Mercury newspaper, one man was helped into an emergency evacuation wheelchair, but his friends, who were holding a meeting in the centre, were unable to operate it correctly. In the end, firefighters had to remove the man safely from the building.

Ballu Patel, chairman of the Leicester Mercury Patients' Panel, has now called for a full review of fire safety procedures to be carried out.

He said: "We must be sure staff are fully trained in fire evacuation and that there are fire marshals for every floor. In this instance, this doesn't seem to have happened.

"The health centre is a public building with two busy GP practices and people visiting for other appointments. It is not practical to ask everyone to sign in and out. There must be a review of procedures."

A spokesperson for NHS Leicester City said groups using health centres must notify reception staff when disabled people are using its centres, and that while there would have been a trained member of staff on duty, they may not have known about the disabled member of the group.

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