Earlier this week we held a coffee morning at one of our sheltered housing schemes in Dorset to talk customers through their new ‘stay put’ fire action plan.
A stay put plan means that for purpose-built blocks of flats, it can sometimes be safer for customers to stay in their home in the event of a fire if the fire elsewhere in the building, reducing the risk of them suffering from smoke inhalation.
The plan also provides guidance on when customers should leave their home and how to evacuate safely while ensuring any fire doors remain shut on the way out to help keep fires at bay until the fire and rescue services arrive.
Many colleagues from across Magna came along to help answer any questions customers had about their new fire action plan, and they also received a letter and a booklet explaining their new plan, as well as a fridge magnet with a quick reminder on what to do if a fire starts. We also showed them an animated video which covered the main takeaways about the new plan.
Chloe Gallagher, FRA Compliance Manager at Magna, gave a great talk and helped to put our customers’ minds at ease. She said:
“A recent coroners report to another social housing provider highlighted the importance of communicating stay put fire action plans above and beyond just sending a letter.
“For us, it was important to host this coffee morning and communicate the plan with our customers in a few different ways, including a letter, booklet, fridge magnet and a video with a voiceover. We also took the opportunity to ask customers for their feedback on which one worked best for them.
“We put customers at the heart of everything we do, so we want to engage with them in the way in which they want to be engaged with and make sure that they understand any changes to their fire action plan.
“Having gathered valuable feedback from our customers from this coffee morning, we’ll continue to roll out the changes across other purpose-built blocks of flats by engaging and communicating with our customers.”
The regulations surrounding fire safety have changed in the last few years, meaning we must now provide customers with more information on their fire action plan and also upgrade the smoke detection across many of our homes. We went one step further than the guidance and made the decision to upgrade all of our sheltered schemes to category LD1 fire protection standards, giving our customers the highest level of protection to keep them safe in the event of a fire.
Chloe finished by saying:
“We know that some of our most vulnerable customers live in our sheltered schemes, and that an early warning in the event of a fire can, and does, save lives.
“We wanted to go above what the British Standards state, and provide the highest level of protection, promoting our Always Safe value.
“The new systems are linked through to an alarm receiving centre, with processes in place to call the emergency services if required. We’ve seen the benefits of these upgrades already, and I’m confident that our customers are safer in their homes because of them.”
We’re proud to be going above and beyond and investing in great fire protection equipment to keep our customers safe, and to be visiting customers in our communities to make sure they understand the new guidance and have an opportunity to talk to us.
