Image: Fire at Chase Farm mental hospital in 2008. Steps have been taken across the NHS since - but are they enough?
Coroners have criticised two recent patient fire deaths at mental health providers Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust and at Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.
Fire safety is a concern across the NHS. There are well-known fire safety problems at some PFI hospitals. Investigations after the Grenfell Tower fire exposed the presence of flammable cladding in NHS hospitals. But risk assessment is tangled up with financial imperatives. Some of the flammable cladding in hospitals was left in situ because it was considered too costly to remove. And such is the general pressure on trusts that some delayed in implementing fire checks ordered by NHS Improvement after the Grenfell fire.
