Unless you have your evacuation chairs inspected and serviced each year, you can’t be sure you’ll be able to use them in an emergency. Unfortunately, it’s not unusual for Alistair Bromhead instructors to arrive at premises for on-site training and find the customers’ chairs unusable.
Chair Problems and Solutions
You, like us, must hope they will never have to be used in a crisis, and because such occurrences are rare, the chairs can rest unused for many years. Over time the problems could include friction belts seizing up, belts which have become damaged or decayed and seat belt straps which have broken. Manufacturers offer servicing, or a more economical option might be to use the qualified engineers at Alistair Bromhead Ltd to deal with regular inspections and maintenance issues.
Operator Confidence
If you haven’t needed to use your evacuation chairs, your trained chair operators may not have touched one since they had their training. Would they have the confidence to be able to perform in an emergency and bring an incapacitated person safely out when evacuation was necessary? Only with regular practice can they retain the skill and confidence they would need.
Our recommendation is to have practice sessions at least every three months. One of the most cost effective ways to achieve this is to use in-house trainers who have attended the Alistair Bromhead one-day IOSH Evacuation Chair Train the Trainer Certificate course. These trainers, of course, should also have refresher training every three years, which will reinforce their learning and experience. This will also bring them up to date with any new developments and techniques in the health and safety area of evacuation chairs and people handling. Where in-house trainers are not practical, we also have a range of options for individual or collective operator training.
Don’t take any chances. Make sure your evacuation chairs and chair handlers are up to the mark.