Hospitals and Care Homes – Risk and Loss Prevention

Risk drivers

In hospitals and care homes, a significant proportion of occupants are bedridden, have limited mobility or depend on assistance, and cannot bring themselves to safety unaided in an emergency. Fire protection concepts therefore must be based on a “defend in place” approach, under which patients are first moved to an adjacent, fire-separated area rather than immediately evacuating the entire building. At the same time, continuous operation of medical equipment and cold chains requires an uninterruptible power supply whose failure can directly endanger patient safety.

Protection measures

Key measures include fine-grained fire compartmentation with smoke-tight barriers between individual care units, a building-wide fire detection system connected to the fire brigade, redundant emergency power supply for life-sustaining systems, and trained staff able to carry out staged patient relocation in an emergency. Recurring evacuation and relocation drills are particularly important given residents’ limited ability to self-rescue.

Insurance relevance

Beyond property damage, liability exposure toward patients in the event of inadequate fire or operational protection is highly significant for healthcare facilities. Insurers reviewing the risk pay particular attention to the quality of fire compartmentation, the redundancy of emergency power supply and documentation of the staff emergency response organisation.