“Doctors, check the concrete”: the British health service asks health personnel to check if the structures are unsafe
National Health Service (NHS) leaders have ordered hospitals across England to be ready to evacuate staff and patients in the event that collapse-prone buildings containing aerated concrete (RAAC) begin to fail and to check periodically The cement.
NHS England issued education to all 224 health trusts on Tuesday, following the controversy over autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), which has already led to the closure of more than 100 schools.
The letter from Dr. Mike Prentice, the organization's national director of emergency planning and incident response, and Jacqui Rock, the organization's commercial director, tells trust officers to familiarize themselves with a "regional evacuation plan." developed by the NHS in the east of England, so that hospitals can implement it in case buildings containing the RAAC start to crumble.
While all trusts should do this, it is "essential" that the 19 trusts with the most RAAC-built structures do so "as a matter of priority", the letter reads.
It reads: “A regional evacuation plan has been created and tested in the east of England. The learnings from this exercise were shared with the other regions.
“We advise all [trust] boards to ensure they are aware of the learnings from this exercise and that they are incorporated into standard business continuity planning as part of normal practice.
"However, this exercise is essential for known organizations using the RAAC, and should be undertaken as a matter of priority if it has not already been completed."
The letter was sent to the chairman, chief executive and property managers of all 224 trusts and 42 integrated care councils in England, which are regional groupings of NHS trusts and local councils.
The letter to hospitals was also told that they must have plans in place to allow for "the eviction of patients and services where RAAC panels are in clinical areas" in the event of a "failure of the RAAC", meaning buildings collapse.
The Royal College of Nursing said nurses were "alarmed" by the need for trusts to prepare evacuation plans.
“Nursing staff and patients deserve to feel safe and will be alarmed by this letter warning trusts to prepare to evacuate hospitals if they are at risk of collapse,” said Leona Cameron, head of health, safety and welfare at the organization .
The RAAC Problem
All these problems derive from the use, from the 1950s to the 1980s , of reinforced aerated autoclaved concrete (Raac), a form of concrete without gravel in which this was replaced by air, but which had the not indifferent problem of having a maximum recommended duration of 30 years. There are buildings from the 50s and 60s that have therefore outlived their safe life of 30 years now.
This type of property has been under control since 2018, when a school collapsed due to the deterioration of the structure. So the United Kingdom has a huge problem of structures to be demolished and rebuilt and these are not secular structures: paradoxically, Victorian age schools are very robust.
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The article “Doctors, Check the concrete”: the British health service asks health personnel to check if the structures are unsafe comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/medici-controllate-il-calcestruzzo-il-servizio-sanitario-britannico-chiede-al-personale-sanitario-di-controllare-se-le-strutture-sono-pericolanti/ on Wed, 06 Sep 2023 09:00:13 +0000.