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Fire Risk Assessment Software
Carrying out Fire Risk Assessments are an important legal requirement for all UK businesses. They are worth taking seriously and treating with a bit of respect not just because the law says you must, but because it makes sense for your business too. The whole process is just about making sure you have reasonable systems in place to ensure the safety of your staff and premises, which can only be a good thing.
The problem is that we all have too much to do anyway, and these things are often seen as something of a chore or an unnecessary expense. It is therefore understandable that people look for ways to simplify the process and get the required result without too much time and effort.
It is possible to find companies offering fire risk assessment software, designed to take some of the strain out of your requirement to meet this legislation. Before going down this route, however, you should consider to what extent the process of carrying out an assessment can be automated, and how much time you are likely to save yourself by using fire risk assessment software.
What Will Fire Risk Assessment Software Do For Me?
My main concern with fire risk assessment software would be if someone thought that the process could be automated to the extent that you just enter some key facts into a PC and push a couple of buttons to get a complete assessment report out the other end. I can see that certain parts of recording and presenting the assessment could be usefully incorporated into a software programme, but I am not convinced that it can save a lot of time unless it is not done properly.
What I am wondering is whether fire risk assessment software can really do anything for you apart from prompt you with lots of questions and provide a framework for your answers. I am not really sure that this is going to be a lot quicker than a decent template form, particularly if your premises are relatively straightforward.
I would certainly advise anyone to steer clear of anything that suggests you can sit down at your PC and rattle off your assessment in minutes. No fire risk assessment software can remove the need for you to walk around your premises and look for potential hazards. Only by doing this will you notice things like piles of empty boxes in a storage area, dodgy door closers on fire doors, portable appliances that have not been tested, etc. You are going to have to do this work whether you have a fancy piece of fire risk assessment software or not, which is partly why I am not convinced there is much to be saved by using such software.
The Alternative to Fire Risk Assessment Software
The guide to fire risk assessment on this website will take you through the stages you need to go through to complete your assessment, and the only other part is how you record and present your findings. You can design a form that suits your particular operation or print off the free Fire Risk Assessment Form that I have provided on this site and use or adapt that.
I see little to be gained from fire risk assessment software if your premises are relatively small and straightforward, as a good guide and a basic form are all you need. If your premises are more complex I would suggest that is even more reason to steer clear of any system that is too standardised, including some software packages. If you are unsure about your ability to undertake the assessment yourself, then rather than looking to an automated tool, I would suggest you ought to consider getting a specialist fire safety consultant to do it for you.
