Evacuation safety in care institutions, service homes and supported housing locations
Rescue plan
An rescue plan is a tool for developing safety. It contains information on how hazardous situations are attempted to be prevented, how they are prepared for and how to act during occurring accidents. More information on the rescue plan is available here.
Evacuation safety in care institutions, service homes and supported housing locations
Evacuation safety means that the people in the building are able to evacuate the building during a fire or some other sudden hazard or that they can be otherwise rescued. In general, the building owner, occupant and the business operator are in their part responsible for the evacuation safety of buildings. In care institutions, service homes and supported housing locations and other facilities, where the residents or patients have functional impairments, the operator has a special obligation to ensure the evacuation safety.
“The operators of hospitals, care homes for the elderly and other institutional care facilities, closed penal institutions and other comparable sites (care institutions), and service and supported housing organised in the form of housing units and other comparable residential buildings and facilities housing residents whose functional capacity is lower than normal (service and supported housing) shall, by using reports and plans drawn up in advance and by taking measures based on them, ensure that the residents and the persons being treated are, in the event of a fire or other dangerous situation, able to leave the building safely, either on their own or with assistance.”
(The Rescue Act 379/2011, Section 18)
An evacuation safety report is a document which describes how the building’s or premises’ purpose of use and the residents’ limited, reduced or different functional capacity and the other factors affecting the evacuation safety are taken into use in the preparations and evacuation arrangements of fires and other dangerous situations.
Who are obligated to compile an evacuation safety report? (in Finnish)
Related acts:
The Rescue Act 379/2011, sections 9, 14, 18–21, 81–82
Government decree on the evacuation safety report 292/2014
