The questions I will ask and look to answer in this article do not form an exhaustive list, but will, I hope, cover some of the important aspects that electrical engineers, fire system installers, designers, and building contractors working in the healthcare sector should be aware of to ensure a safe and compliant life safety installation.
What is emergency lighting, and where is it required?
Emergency lighting is lighting that automatically comes into operation when the mains power supply to the normal lighting fails, for example during a power cut in a hospital or other healthcare facility, or when a lighting circuit breaker has tripped. This specialist lighting is required wherever the public has access to a building, or where people are employed. The list of such locations is extensive, and includes premises such as healthcare and educational buildings, all communal areas of residential blocks – such as stairwells, corridors, and shared facilities, travel hubs such as railway stations, ferry ports and airport terminals, multi-storey car parks, leisure centres, pubs, theatres, shops, restaurants, offices, factories, warehouses, and even places of worship. Normally, a private dwelling within a house of multiple occupancy, or an individual home, where the general public do not have access, does not require emergency lighting.
What are the different types of emergency lighting?
There are several types of emergency lighting available, and the way in which they are operated also differs. As a result, installing the right system for the particular healthcare setting’s unique circumstances is critical.
Maintained luminaires have a lamp/s which may operate in both mains-healthy and emergency lighting conditions. Such luminaires may be lit permanently or switched on/off (switch maintained). If a lamp is switched off, it will automatically come on in ‘emergency’ mode.
Non-maintained luminaires only come on in the event of a power failure as an emergency light source. The continuous mains supply is used to charge the battery.
Central battery systems are where the batteries for emergency lighting are situated at one or more remote locations in a building, supplying all applicable luminaires in the event of a power failure, whether they are maintained or non-maintained. All emergency luminaires will have a charge healthy LED indicator, which shows that the battery is being charged while there is a mains feed. When the power fails, the LED will switch off, and the lamp will be illuminated by the battery. The remote batteries traditionally have a longer design life, of 10 years. One of the biggest advantages of centralised systems is ease of access. Standalone luminaires can sometimes be found in hard-toreach locations, so battery changing would be expensive and require specialist equipment, e.g. scaffolding in high-level areas.
Standalone luminaires are dedicated emergency lighting, with integral batteries, which can be ‘maintained’ or ‘non-maintained’. The latest designs using LED sources have light distributions to suit specific applications; escape route versions provide a long linear distribution, whereas anti-panic versions have a symmetrical distribution, and cover a wide area
Combined luminaires contain two or more sets of lamps, at least one of which is powered from the emergency lighting supply, and the other(s) from the normal mains power supply. A combined emergency lighting luminaire can be either maintained or non-maintained.
Sustained emergency lighting describes a system where a lamp separate to the main lamp provides the emergency light source. This minimises any possibility of emergency lamp failure, as the ‘sustained’ lamp is only used in ‘emergency mode’, and will be nonmaintained.
Exit signage: The escape routes from a building must be clearly and unambiguously defined. This is best achieved by self-illuminated luminaires. These must be compliant to relevant standards in size, colour, and luminous intensity, with appropriate and current symbols – commonly known as ‘running man’ signs.
Non-illuminated signs are commonly used as they are cheaper, but they should also be illuminated to specified levels, which is all too often overlooked, making them non-compliant and difficult to see when the mains light has failed.
What are the regulations surrounding emergency lighting in healthcare settings?
Anything to do with the safety of the public, or employees, is generally heavily regulated. There are laws, regulations, and standards in place to define where emergency lighting is required, and how it should be installed, maintained, and tested. This ensures that lighting levels at key points in the design of the system are at compliant levels.
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order (RRFSO) 2005 charges the Responsible Person (or Duty Holder in Scotland, and Appropriate Person in Northern Ireland) in control of nondomestic premises and the common areas of a House in Multiple Occupancy (HMO) with the safety of everyone in the building. ‘Everyone’ in this case means anyone who is either working, visiting, or living there. This duty of care includes the provision of emergency lighting. Article 14 (2) (h) of the RRFSO states: “Emergency routes and exits requiring illumination must be provided with emergency lighting of adequate intensity in the case of failure of their normal lighting.”
There is also the British Standard, BS 5266, which covers the design, testing, reporting, and maintenance of emergency lighting, ensuring that once installed the devices and system are not forgotten about. Emergency lighting is an essential component to the fire safety provision of a building, and must not be ignored. If you are the person responsible for the safety of the people using your building. It is therefore imperative that you work with specialists who are trusted experts in this field, and can design and install emergency lighting products which are compliant and fit for purpose
How has emergency lighting legislation changed since the Hackitt report?
As part of the Government’s response to the Grenfell Tower fire, Dame Judith Hackitt was commissioned to undertake an independent review of the Building Regulations, and in particular their impact on fire safety. In May 2018, a year on from the tragedy, Dame Judith published her final report, Building a Safer Future, labelled as the next ‘key step in an extensive overhaul to building safety legislation’ by former Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Robert Jenrick.
The report’s overarching theme was that building safety and regulation in the UK was far below the required standard, and needed urgent updates to ensure that there is never a tragedy like Grenfell ever again. The report signalled significant and widespread changes that would impact on both the construction and ongoing management of residential building blocks.
Following the release of the Hackitt report, the Building Safety Act was then implemented and granted Royal Assent on 28 April 2022, thus becoming law. The Act made ground-breaking reforms – including far-reaching protections for qualifying leaseholders from the costs associated with remediating historical building safety defects, and an ambitious toolkit of measures that will allow those responsible for building safety defects to be held to account, with new criminal offences for the worst offenders, fines, and up to two years in prison.
To tackle the issue of ‘shirking responsibility’, the Act reforms the Fire Safety Order, and makes it clearer for residents who to go to for any fire safety concerns, including sub-par emergency lighting systems. The responsible person will also be required to keep updated fire safety information for residents.
As Grenfell tragically demonstrated, fire safety in the UK was dangerously below acceptable standards, and information on compliance testing and the competency of those carrying it out wasn’t always clear and transmissible. The Act overhauls existing regulations, creating lasting change, and makes clear how residential buildings should be constructed, maintained, and made safe.
What should emergency lighting specialists consider when designing and installing new systems for a healthcare facility?
When it comes to new emergency lighting systems for the healthcare sector, the company you employ to design, install, test, and maintain, your emergency lighting levels should consider how modern technology alongside human intervention will play its part. For example, you may have had a ‘self-testing’ system installed, but this doesn’t equal ‘fit and forget’. There is still the requirement for real people to check reports and that, subsequently, any remedial work required is actioned. There is also a legal requirement for monthly functionality testing, and annual battery duration (three hours in most cases) tests by law.
It is also recommended that the company you employ uses design software to prove that light levels are compliant, and to provide documentation to prove compliance. This is especially important in high-risk areas and points of emphasis, so that the positioning of emergency lighting provides the correct levels of illuminance, for example, across call points (five lux minimum)
To achieve a successful and compliant emergency lighting design and installation, building designers, installers, electrical engineers, and contractors, need to work together. The onus is on everyone in the chain to ensure that this happens and goes right back to the tender stage; emergency lighting designers should have access to the fire design to cover all points of emphasis etc, helping to create a compliant scheme.
What qualifications should the person or company responsible for the design and/or installation of my emergency lighting system hold?
In fact, there isn’t an industry-recognised qualification specific to emergency lighting. There are, however, several official bodies working together to address this issue, and to potentially create formalised training with a recognised qualification at the end of it, removing the ‘cowboy’ element. Until then, facilities managers, building owners, landlords, and tenants, need to seek out competent, experienced, and qualified design teams and installers to ensure that design compliance is met, with approved equipment installed.
Is saving money possible with the correct choice of emergency lighting?
In our homes, most of us now use energy-efficient lighting, which helps to lower electricity bills and carbon dioxide emissions, all without reducing the quality of light in our homes. Within the healthcare sector, many have also made the switch to energy-efficient light sources to light rooms and corridors, but sadly there are many who still haven’t updated their emergency lighting to be more efficient. There are significant potential savings to running costs, as well as carbon footprint reductions, when switching to a more efficient system, because older emergency lighting uses bigger and more expensive batteries incorporating more materials, such as Lithium, Nickel, and Cadmium etc. Older light sources also have a far shorter life expectancy, increasing both the risk of failures and maintenance costs, as well as reducing safety.
The power consumed by emergency lighting is deemed ‘parasitic’. This is the power consumed by the device while the emergency lighting is in a non-operational or standby mode. In emergency language this would be a non-maintained emergency luminaire that functions in the event of a mains failure. The system and luminaires are connected to the mains, and will continue to draw power to maintain sufficient charge in the batteries for a three-hour discharge duration
What are the benefits of emergency lighting systems with automatic testing?
Using automatic testing systems for emergency lighting can provide many benefits, the most obvious being fewer maintenance tasks. It also creates a lower overall cost of ownership, i.e., the long-term costs and expenses incurred during the product’s useful life and ultimate disposal are a lower, and thus offer better value in the long run.
Emergency lighting automatic test systems can generate a full report detailing the state of each individual luminaire, which is recorded, and can be accessed via software. The condition of the battery and light source functionality are also tested. This whole process happens automatically, and without any human intervention. However, as mentioned earlier, when it comes to interpreting the results of a report, a competent person still needs to validate the results and act if necessary. These actions combined provide peace of mind that the installation is safe and compliant.
What does the future of emergency lighting look like, and how might my building benefit?
Today customers are demanding a more personalised and instant experience, so it makes sense for healthcare estates (of any size) to harness the power of next generation technology to become leaner, more agile, and in some cases safer. Life safety manufacturers and system designers are utilising the power of the cloud to enhance their emergency lighting offering to the industry, and enable instant access to critical data, particularly in an emergency
A networked lighting system which allows for ‘cloud ‘reporting means that building management teams for hospitals can remotely monitor performance and safety alongside other building systems ‘24/7’. Messages in real time via mobile text messages or email can also be sent to the responsible person, meaning that engineers can fix some minor problems remotely without even needing to travel to site, or without having someone who may not know what they are looking at relaying the information over the phone. The biggest benefits here are a reduction in site visit costs, and a lower risk of human error
Schedules of maintenance can also be organised via the cloud, where the system monitors the lifecycle of different devices within a networked lighting system. This creates a more proactive approach, and allows repairs to happen before any potential malfunctions occur
Another benefit of cloud-based emergency lighting technology for healthcare is that it is easily scalable and flexible to the unique circumstances of the building or buildings in which it resides. This is perfect for educational settings, healthcare, high-rise, mixed use commercial, or industrial applications, where multiple sites can be monitored from a central location – all of which can be catered for via the cloud
These are just some of the questions that need to be asked when implementing a new emergency lighting system into a healthcare setting. It is important both to understand the unique circumstances of the building you are responsible for, and to ensure that the emergency lighting system meets all legislative requirements and is fit for purpose. Equally vital is ‘vetting’ the companies you choose to work with, to ensure that they have the relevant experience, and also that they work with products that are from reputable and trusted manufacturers
Martin Green
Martin Green is the Commercial Training and Support manager at Hochiki Europe. With almost 30 years’ experience in the life safety industry, he has extensive knowledge when it comes to life safety systems, their applications, compliance, and industry best practice.
Established in Japan in 1918, Hochiki is an independent, multinational, publicly-listed company with over 1700 employees across the globe. One of the world’s leading manufacturers of commercial and industrial fire detection and emergency lighting solutions, Hochiki says it has ‘acquired global acceptance as the benchmark for high-integrity and long-term reliability’.