Fire safety failures at Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary are so serious that it will cost nearly £14 million to correct them, it has emerged.

The shocking extent of the substandard fire safety precautions at the hospital can today be revealed for the first time after the News & Star won access to a previously confidential report.

Responsibility for maintaining the infirmary building lies with the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) company which owns it, Health Management Carlisle Ltd.

Yet an expert report on the £67m hospital says fire safety failures stretching back years have the potential to put staff and patients at “intolerable risk” if not tackled.

Fire chiefs are so concerned that they have issued an enforcement notice demanding immediate action.

Meanwhile bosses at North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust – responsible for all the medical services at the hospital – have trained 127 fire wardens and introduced hourly fire prevention checks.

The hospital should have been built to stop smoke and flames spreading between wards and other parts of the building for at least 60 minutes, giving staff and patients time to escape.

But an inspection commissioned by Trust bosses reveals that much of the hospital fails to meet that standard.

The extent of the HMC’s failure has been revealed after the News & Star used Freedom of Information laws to obtain a copy of the previously unpublished expert report into the problems.

The 92-page document describes comprehensive and widespread failings.

The faults found include:

  • Faulty fire safety doors with gaps that would allow smoke to pour from wards to the hospital atrium;
  • Wrongly labelled 30-minute fire doors used in a ward that should have had 60-minute fire doors;
  • A firewall in the children’s ward which stopped above the false ceiling;
  • A defective fire alarm system, which has prompted bosses to introduce hourly fire safety checks by staff;
  • A wall between a stairwell and a ward which was inadequately sealed, potentially allowing smoke to spread;
  • Similarly unfinished fire walls in the hospital’s sterile services department;
  • A wall in the special care baby unit which – like others in the hospital – was sealed with inadequately fire-resistant expanding foam;
  • Numerous gaping holes in fire walls, ensuring they would allow smoke and fire to spread through the building;
  • A failure by HMC to ensure that its staff were testing the existing fire detection and alarm systems.


Cumberland Infirmary The report’s summary highlights deficiencies in the hospital’s original construction, made worse by a poor standard of subsequent work.

Not enough was done, says the report, to ensure construction personnel were competent in providing fire precautions and fire-stopping. Nor has there been sufficient maintenance of fire safety measures, or a system to check the hospital’s fire safety.

The summary says: “The shortfalls are considered so severe that the author of this report is of the opinion that the building owners and operators are failing to provide premises that meet an appropriate level of fire safety for the continued provision of patient care.

“It is imperative that immediate action is taken to address the issues identified in this report.”

Trust bosses – who are not legally responsible for maintaining the infirmary building – say they took immediate steps to tackle the crisis when confronted with the facts.

But many of the problems identified can be tackled only when temporary wards are set up, allowing workers to get access to patient areas.

The report concludes: “Without a robust system of [fire] control, monitoring, and independent audit, the building owners and operators have unwittingly allowed latent defects in the fire safety provisions to accumulate over a significant period resulting in an exposure to risk for the Trust’s staff and patients.

“Failure to design and implement a robust system for monitoring fire-safety performance could allow the fire safety provision to continue to deteriorate, increasing the exposure of responsible persons to legal enforcement action and staff and patients to intolerable risk.”


Dave Armstrong Dave Armstrong, a regional official with the public sector union Unison, suggested that if the hospital were a nightclub in Carlisle it would have had its licence revoked.

He said: “We always suspected that PFI hospitals were built for maximum profit and minimum safety – but it now looks as if they haven’t even achieved minimum safety.

“It’s a case of the drive for profit potentially putting lives at risk. I spoke to a Fire Brigades Union rep after this report was written and he rightly pointed out that our members are at risk. He said the place was shoddy.

“It’s very worrying for the staff and patients.”

Dave Burn, secretary of Cumbria’s Fire Brigades Union, was equally scathing.

He said: “This report clearly identifies a catalogue of failings. It sounds like a nightmare. To be absolutely honest, I don’t know what sort of legality there is for that building operating. It’s very, very worrying indeed.

“Every single person who goes through those hospital doors is put at risk by these failings.”


Dave Burn Mr Burn said it was staggering that nearly £14m had to be spent putting right fire safety measures which should have been in place from the day the Infirmary opened. “It’s quite shocking,” he said.

Stewart Young, leader of Cumbria County Council, used the same word to describe the details revealed by the report, which was prepared by the specialist fire safety firm Healthfire.

He said: “It’s quite shocking that this has gone on for so long and shocking that the PFI partner hasn’t addressed these issues. It’s absolutely clear that responsibility lies with the PFI partner, who is responsible for maintaining the hospital building. They’re supposed to keep the building in a fit and proper state.”

Mr Young said he had been opposed to PFI as a model from the outset, but 15 years ago, at the start of the infirmary’s life, it was the only option available for areas needing a new hospital.

He added that the issue gave force to the Cumbria Deal devolution proposal – backed by the county’s local authorities – which calls for the Government to buy out the North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust PFI deal.

AN HMC spokesman said that the firm had, with its partners, reviewed the findings of independent reports into fire related matters at the infirmary and started a series of improvement programmes involving the Trust and other statutory authorities.

He added: “The safety of patients, staff and visitors to the hospital is critical at all stages of these programmes and HMC will work with operational colleagues to ensure this remains the case.

“HMC has engaged expert advisers to review all aspects of fire related matters and to develop appropriate plans for the ongoing operation of the hospital.”