Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of updating the hospital fire code to include the (a) 18-metre rule, (b) requirement for limited combustibility insulation and (c) large-scale testing requirement to BS841 which is included in residential building regulations.

The National Health Service has unique fire safety issues given the nature of its services and the patients it treats. Fire safety guidance is provided to the NHS in the Health Technical Memorandum (HTM) 05-02 generally referred to as ‘Firecode’. This will be updated to reflect recent changes in legislation and guidance, such as the changes to Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 that have recently been consulted on.