Disabled residents are not a minority issue!
In the UK, over 14 million people have a disability. Although a proportion will have been disabled since birth or early childhood, many will have developed impairments over their lifetime through illness or injury. Cognitive and physical impairments are factors that can influence the probability of a fire, fire detection and the ability to evacuate the property.
As COVID-19 continues to cause a backlog of hospital treatments, 400,000 people have been left waiting for surgery in the course of a year, millions more could be vulnerable to fire safety risks.
“Fire safety for disabled residents is not a minority issue. Disabilities affect more than one in five people in the UK, and half of those who died in the Grenfell Tower Fire were disabled or children,” says Fazilet Hadi, Head of Policy at Disability Rights UK.
In multiple-occupancy houses, terraced homes, and high-rise buildings, a major fire does not just put a single household in danger but potentially hundreds of lives. Read more….