How to Conduct A Fire Drill For Care Homes
The following Fire Drill procedures relate to Care Homes/Nursing Homes, although the steps and actions will also apply to any organisation/business.
Overview of the Challenge
Unlike most businesses, care homes pose significant challenges for conducting fire drills.
Residents are often frail, have reduced mobility, or live with cognitive impairments, so drills must balance realistic practice with resident safety and dignity.
Main Difficulties
- Resident Vulnerability and Mobility
Many residents will not be able to evacuate themselves safely. They may need one-to-one physical assistance or specialist evacuation equipment, which slows drills and increases risk during practice.
- Repeated Fire Drills Can Cause Anxiety or Distress
Residents with dementia or severe confusion may become frightened, refuse to move, or behave unpredictably during noisy alarms and staged evacuations.
- Clinical and Medication Needs
Residents who depend on oxygen, feeding pumps, catheter care, or other clinical devices complicate rapid movement and can make evacuation drills unsafe.
Personal Evacuation Plans (PEEPS) for each resident are essential for providing the necessary assistance during an emergency evacuation, including the safest exit routes, transport, and movement.
- Staffing Levels and Skill Mix
Staffing ratios, especially at night, are often barely sufficient for care duties; pulling staff into drills reduces supervision and may leave other residents vulnerable.
Care homes often experience high staff turnover, which can result in lower skill levels within the home and require more frequent training.
- Building Layout and Compartmentation
Care homes commonly use progressive horizontal evacuation and compartmentation rather than complete simultaneous evacuation, so drills must reflect complex staged moves and safe refuge areas.
- Props, Equipment and Practical Logistics
Stretchers, evacuation chairs, hoists, and rescue mats require trained teams and safe practice spaces; equipment failure or improper use during a drill can result in injury.
- Regulatory and Inspection Expectations
The responsible person must demonstrate regular, appropriate drills and follow updated standards and guidance specific to care homes. Keeping abreast of the latest changes to regulations and practices can be time-consuming and is often neglected.
- Alarm Fatigue and Realism Trade-off
Frequent drills lower staff responsiveness, but realistic full-scale drills may distress residents; striking the right frequency and realism can be difficult.
Legal Requirements for Evacuation Drills
Despite the difficulties of running fire drills, they cannot be avoided.
Care homes in England and Wales must follow the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which places responsibility on the “responsible person” to carry out suitable and sufficient fire risk assessments.
Under Article 21 of the FSO, employers must ensure that staff are trained in safety protocols, including how to evacuate safely during an emergency.
Regular fire and evacuation drills must be planned, practised, recorded, and reviewed so the evacuation plan is tested, staff know their responsibilities, and weaknesses are fixed.
Failure to comply with the Fire Safety Order may attract enforcement action, including fines or imprisonment; therefore, conducting regular fire evacuation drills is both a statutory requirement and an essential life‑safety measure.
Preparing for the Fire Evacuation Drill
Never has the term “prior preparation and planning, prevents poor performance” (the 6 P’s) been more appropriate!
To ensure any fire drill runs as smoothly as possible, the preparation stage is the most important.
Ideally, the person(s) responsible for conducting the fire drill should have a systematic approach to ensure:
- Staff are trained and prepared.
- The physical environment is checked.
- Communications are prepared.
- Safety and security are in place.
- Any special considerations?
It takes weeks to ensure a successful evacuation drill; however, once you have a system in place, future drills can be undertaken much more easily and in less time.
The responsible person should determine the possible objectives of the drill, such as:
- Identify any weaknesses in the evacuation strategy.
- Test the procedure following any recent alterations or changes to working practices.
- Test the procedure with minimum staff levels.
- Familiarise new members of staff with procedures.
- Familiarise residents with procedures.
- Test the arrangements for disabled people.
Carrying Out the Drill
For premises with more than one escape route, the escape plan should be designed to evacuate all people, assuming that one exit or stairway is unavailable due to the fire.
This could be simulated by having a designated person located at a suitable point on the exit route.
Applying this scenario to different escape routes during each fire drill will encourage individuals to use alternative routes they may not normally use.
When carrying out the drill, you might find it helpful to:
- Circulate the drill details and inform all staff of their duty to participate. It may not be beneficial to have ‘surprise drills’ as the health and safety risks introduced may outweigh the benefits.
- Inform residents with learning difficulties using specialised techniques (e.g., visual imagery).
- Ensure that the equipment can be safely left.
- Nominate observers.
- Inform the alarm receiving centre if the fire warning system is monitored (if the fire and rescue service is typically called directly from your premises, ensure that this does not happen).
- Inform visitors if they are present.
- Ask a member of staff to randomly set off the alarm by operating the nearest alarm call point using the test key. This will indicate the level of knowledge about the location of the closest call point (a different call point should be used for each drill).
The Roll Call – Checking the Premises Have Been Evacuated
Carry out a roll call as soon as possible at the designated assembly point(s), and/or receive reports from wardens designated to ‘sweep’ the premises. Please note any individuals who are unaccounted for.
During a real evacuation, this information will need to be passed on to the fire and rescue service upon arrival.
Check That People Have Assembled at the Evacuation Point
Once the roll call is complete or all reports have been received, allow people to return to the building. If the fire warning system is monitored, inform the alarm receiving centre that the drill has been completed and record the drill’s outcomes.
In premises where residents may not be fully aware of what is happening (due to age or mental impairment), staff must act on their behalf.
It is also possible that some residents will wander away from the assembly point, and this should be monitored and, if possible, controlled.
Monitoring and Debrief
Throughout the drill, the responsible person and nominated observers should pay particular attention to:
- Difficulties in moving, or the time taken to move, non- or semi-ambulant residents.
- If communication difficulties arose during roll call and verifying that everyone was accounted for.
- The use of the nearest available escape routes as opposed to common circulation routes.
- Difficulties opening the final exit doors.
- Difficulties experienced by people with disabilities.
- The roles of specified people, e.g. fire wardens.
- Inappropriate actions, e.g. stopping to collect personal items, attempting to use lifts, etc.
- Windows and doors are not being closed as people leave.
On-the-spot debriefs facilitate discussion of the fire drill and encourage feedback from everyone.
Later, reports from fire wardens and observations from people should be collated and reviewed. Any conclusions and remedial actions should be recorded and implemented.
Who Should Take Part?
Within each building, the evacuation should be for all occupants except those who may need to ensure the security of the premises, or people who, on a risk-assessed basis, cannot be moved, must remain with a resident who cannot be transferred, or are required to stay with particular equipment or processes that cannot be closed down.
Premises or complexes that consist of several buildings on the same site should be addressed one building at a time over an appropriate period, unless the emergency procedure dictates otherwise.
You should consider the feasibility of drills involving non-ambulatory or semi-ambulatory residents, provided their medical condition permits.
Properly simulated drills will include residents or a significant number of residents.
The frequency of drills should ensure that regular occasional residents (e.g. who attend the home for a few days each month for respite care) are included in some drills.
You may find it helpful to include members of the public (visitors) in your fire drill, ensuring that all necessary health and safety issues are addressed beforehand.
How Often Should You Conduct a Fire Drill?
This should be carried out at least annually or as determined by your fire risk assessment. If you have high staff turnover, you may need to conduct them more frequently.
Care homes are deemed high-risk premises, and government guidelines recommend conducting fire evacuation drills every six months.
It is advisable to either have one drill at night or simulate nighttime conditions, including the applicable night staffing levels.
A well-planned and executed fire drill will confirm understanding of the training and provide helpful information for future training.
How We Can Help With Your Fire Evacuation Drills
With so many difficulties and obstacles to overcome, it is no wonder care home managers and ‘responsible persons’ rarely attempt fire evacuation drills. The logistics and health-and-safety aspects alone make doing so a real challenge.
At PRT-Training, we recognise the challenge care homes face, and are proud to provide a Fire Evacuation Drill Service to help homes stay safe and legally compliant.
