Introduction to Health and Safety at Work

13.15 
Planning for an emergency and 
training staff
Each workplace should have an emergency plan. The 
plan should include the action to be taken by staff in the 
event of fi re, the evacuation procedure and the arrange-
ments for calling the fi re brigade.
For small workplaces this could take the form of a 
simple fi re action notice posted in positions where staff 
can read it and become familiar with it.
High-fi re-risk or larger workplaces will need more 
detailed plans, which take account of the fi ndings of 
the risk assessment, for example, the staff signifi cantly 
at risk and their location. For large workplaces, notices 
giving clear and concise instructions of the routine to be 
followed in case of fi re should be prominently displayed. 
The notice should include the method of raising an 
alarm in the case of fi re and the location of an assembly 
point to which staff escaping from the workplace should 
report. This information is given in Chapter 6.
13.16 
Fire procedures and people 
with a disability
People with a disability (including members of the 
public) need special consideration, when planning for 
Equipment Period 
Action
Fire-detection and fi re-
Weekly
• Check all systems for state of repair and operation
warning systems including
 
• Repair or replace defective units
self-contained smoke alarms
 
• Test operation of systems, self-contained alarms and manually operated
and manually operated
 
 
devices
devices
Annually
• Full check and test of system by competent service engineer
• Clean self-contained smoke alarms and change batteries
Emergency lighting