Fire Safety for GP Surgeries and Healthcare Premises

Fire safety in a GP surgery or healthcare premises carries considerations that go beyond the standard commercial setting, from patients who may need evacuation assistance to medical oxygen storage and complex building arrangements. This guide covers the key legal duties, practical priorities, and common questions for responsible persons in primary care.

By Fletcher Risk | Chester · Liverpool · Manchester · Warrington · North Wales | 16 March 2026

General practice is, by its nature, a complex environment to manage. The clinical demands on a GP surgery are considerable enough without layering in the administrative and compliance obligations that come with running a physical premises. Fire safety is one of those obligations, and in a healthcare setting, it carries a weight that goes beyond the standard commercial context. This guide is intended to help practice managers, GP partners, and responsible persons in primary and community healthcare understand what fire safety compliance looks like in their specific setting, what the common challenges are, and how to approach them practically.

Why Healthcare Premises Deserve Specific Attention

One of the most significant distinctions between a GP surgery and other commercial premises, from a fire safety perspective, is the occupant profile. A GP surgery on any given morning may have waiting rooms containing elderly patients with limited mobility, individuals recovering from minor procedures, people with cognitive impairment, and young children. Evacuation in a healthcare setting takes longer, requires more coordination, and benefits significantly from having been thought through in advance.

There are also material differences in the physical environment. Medical oxygen, alcohol-based hand gels, pharmaceutical stocks, and sterilisation equipment introduce hazards that a standard commercial premises assessment will not automatically account for. Electrical infrastructure in older converted buildings, many GP surgeries occupy premises that were never purpose-built for clinical use, can present risks that benefit from periodic review.

None of this means that fire safety in a GP surgery is unmanageable. It means that a thoughtful, premises-specific approach will serve a practice considerably better than an off-the-shelf solution.

The Legal Framework

The primary legislation governing fire safety in non-domestic premises in England and Wales is the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. Under this Order, the duty to ensure fire safety falls on the "responsible person", typically the employer, the owner of the premises, or the person with control of the building. In a GP surgery, identifying the responsible person is sometimes straightforward and sometimes less so. A single-handed practice in its own building has a clear answer. A larger practice sharing a health centre with a community trust and an NHS Property Services landlord may find that responsibilities are distributed across multiple parties. The legislation accommodates this and allows for shared responsibility between multiple responsible persons, but it is worth being explicit about who is responsible for what, and documenting that clearly.

The responsible person must, at minimum: Carry out or commission a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment of the premises, and review it regularly or when significant changes occur. Implement any actions identified by that assessment. Put in place appropriate fire safety arrangements, including an emergency evacuation plan, staff training, and equipment maintenance. Keep a written record of the assessment and arrangements, particularly where five or more people are employed.

Healthcare premises will also be subject to Care Quality Commission requirements, Health and Safety at Work Act duties, and, depending on the building's size and nature, potential obligations under the Building Safety Act 2022. Practices in older or listed buildings may face additional considerations around the practicalities of implementing fire safety improvements within planning or heritage constraints.

This sounds like a great deal of legislation to navigate. In practice, a well-conducted fire risk assessment will identify what is required for a specific premises and provide a clear, prioritised action plan.

The Fire Risk Assessment: What to Expect

The fire risk assessment is the foundation of a practice's fire safety arrangements. It informs everything else — the emergency plan, the training programme, the maintenance schedule, the equipment provision. For a GP surgery, a suitable and sufficient assessment should work through the following areas:

Ignition sources. Electrical equipment, heating systems, kitchen facilities, clinical equipment that generates heat, all should be identified and evaluated. Particular attention is often paid to how electrical equipment is managed, including the use of extension leads and the overnight status of devices.

Fuel sources. Paper records, soft furnishings, cleaning materials, clinical supplies, waste and anything that could contribute to fire spread should be considered in terms of how it is stored and whether it creates unnecessary risk.

Oxygen and flammable materials. Medical oxygen, alcohol-based products, and certain pharmaceutical or sterilisation agents deserve specific attention. The assessment should verify that storage and handling meets relevant standards.

People at risk. This is the area where healthcare assessments most distinctively differ from standard commercial ones. All categories of occupant should be considered: staff, patients (including those with mobility, sensory, or cognitive limitations), contractors, and visitors. The assessment should address how each group will be alerted in the event of a fire and how they will safely leave the building.

Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans. Where individuals, whether patients or staff, may not be able to evacuate independently, a Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan (PEEP) should be in place. In a busy clinical setting, this requires some practical thought about how to identify patients who may need assistance on a given day and how that assistance will be provided.

Existing fire safety measures. The assessment will evaluate what detection, alarm, suppression, fire door, lighting, signage, and equipment provision is already in place and whether it is appropriate for the specific risks identified.

Emergency plan. The assessment should result in a written emergency plan that sets out clearly who does what in the event of a fire, and that accounts for variations in staffing, such as reduced cover during lunch or at the end of the day.

It is worth noting that the law requires the assessment to be "suitable and sufficient" for the specific premises and carried out by a competent person. A generic template is unlikely to meet that standard for a healthcare setting. The assessment should reflect the actual layout, actual occupancy, and actual hazards of the building in question.

Fire Doors - Consistent Inspection Programme

Fire doors are one of the most effective tools in a building's fire safety infrastructure. They contain fire and smoke, protect escape routes, and, critically in a healthcare setting where evacuation may take longer than in a standard commercial premises, buy time. They are also, in practice, one of the most commonly found areas for improvement in fire risk assessments. The pressures of a busy clinical day mean that fire doors are sometimes held open for operational convenience, or accumulate wear and damage that goes unreported simply because no one has been designated to look.

A consistent fire door inspection programme is therefore essential in these settings. Doors on escape routes and within fire compartmentation walls should be checked regularly, for damage, for the condition of door closers, intumescent strips and smoke seals, and for any signs that they are being compromised in day-to-day use. Findings should be recorded and defects addressed promptly. If a fire door inspection has not been carried out recently, or if the practice has no clear record of when doors were last formally assessed, that is a reasonable place to start.

Staff Training: Making It Relevant

All staff should receive fire safety training on induction and at regular intervals thereafter, annually is a widely used standard for higher-risk environments. The training should cover the essentials: how to raise the alarm, how to use a fire extinguisher appropriately, how to evacuate the building, where to assemble, and how to assist patients who may need help.

The most effective training for a healthcare setting reflects the specific building, the specific escape routes, and the specific patient groups the practice serves. A member of staff who has walked the evacuation routes of their actual building and thought through how they would assist a patient in a wheelchair is considerably better prepared than one who has completed an online module about a notional office.

Practices should also consider the fire marshal role. Fire marshals are those members of staff who take a more active role in fire safety management and emergency response, checking areas, assisting with evacuation, and liaising with emergency services on arrival. Depending on the size and nature of the premises, having trained fire marshals on duty during opening hours is likely to be a requirement of the fire risk assessment. Training for this role is available as a short, practical course.

Training records should be maintained. Not because documentation is an end in itself, but because the ability to demonstrate that staff have been trained to a local authority inspector, fire safety officer, or simply as part of good practice governance, is a straightforward protection for the responsible person.

Electrical Safety: A Supporting Consideration

Electrical faults are a leading cause of fires in commercial premises, and healthcare buildings are not exempt from this. The combination of high equipment density, older building stock, and the incremental addition of devices over many years means that electrical infrastructure in GP surgeries occasionally requires attention.

This does not mean that every practice needs an immediate full rewire. It does mean that periodic electrical inspection, and attention to the way electrical equipment is used day-to-day, is a reasonable and proportionate measure. Extension leads and multi-socket adaptors, the reliable companions of any overstretched clinical space, are worth reviewing. Equipment that is left powered overnight without a clear need should be identified. Any areas where faults have been repeatedly reported should be investigated properly rather than managed around. An electrician can carry out an Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) for a premises and provide a clear picture of where, if anywhere, remedial work is warranted.

Out-of-Hours Security and Arson Prevention

A GP surgery that is well-staffed during opening hours is, outside those hours, an unattended building containing pharmaceutical stocks, valuable equipment, and patient records. This makes it, like many healthcare and public-service premises, a target of some interest to opportunistic criminals. Arson, whether targeted or opportunistic, is a real risk for unattended premises, and one that a fire risk assessment should address. Practical measures tend to be straightforward: adequate external lighting, secure waste storage (combustible materials left adjacent to a building present an obvious risk), alarm systems with a monitored response, and periodic review of access controls.

None of this requires significant investment. It does require the risk to be recognised and addressed in the assessment rather than overlooked.

What Good Fire Safety Looks Like in Practice

A GP surgery with well-managed fire safety is not a surgery that has eliminated all possible risk — no building can do that. It is a surgery where the risks have been properly identified, where sensible and proportionate controls are in place, where staff know what to do and have practised it, and where the responsible person can demonstrate, clearly and with documentation, that they have taken their duties seriously. In practical terms, this typically means a current fire risk assessment that reflects the actual premises, a written emergency plan that staff have been trained on, a regular fire door inspection programme, maintained fire safety equipment, and up-to-date training records. These are not onerous requirements. They are the reasonable foundations of a safe working and clinical environment.

The starting point, for any practice that is uncertain about its current position, is a professional fire risk assessment. That assessment will provide a clear picture of what is working well, what requires attention, and, importantly, in what order those things should be addressed.

How Fletcher Risk Can Help

Fletcher Risk Management works with GP surgeries, health centres, and healthcare premises accross the North West and North Wales to provide fire risk assessments, fire door inspections, and fire safety training. Our assessments are carried out by qualified, experienced professionals and are tailored to the specific layout, occupancy, and activities of each premises. If you would like to discuss the fire safety arrangements for your surgery or healthcare building, whether you are starting from scratch, due a review, or have a specific concern, we would be glad to help.

Please call us on 01244 394244, or complete this form to contact us to arrange an assessment or an initial conversation.

Disclaimer

This article is intended to provide general guidance on fire safety considerations for GP surgeries and healthcare premises in England and Wales. It does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as a substitute for a professional fire risk assessment carried out by a competent person in accordance with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. Fire safety requirements vary depending on the specific nature, layout, and occupancy of individual premises. Fletcher Risk Management accepts no liability for actions taken or not taken on the basis of the information contained in this article.

Tim Fletcher16 March 2026