Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service plans to stop responding to automatic alarm calls at hospitals during the daytime after a year in which incidents including a cotton bud fire were attended. The service says that a 999 call will need to be made for crews to attend an automatic alarm call at hospitals between certain hours.
It comes as figures show that, in the last financial year, running from April 2021 to April 2022, Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service responded to nearly 3,500 incidents triggered by an automatic alarm that turned out not to be a fire. The service introduced a policy in 2018 which saw call challenging being used 24 hours a day when an automatic fire alarm is activated.
Call challenging involves a series of questions being asked to assess whether an emergency response is required before crews are deployed. But several premises are exempt from call challenging, including residential flats, care homes and heritage sites.
