What Does Fire Safety Law Require in a Care Home?

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1. 1Who is the “Responsible Person” for fire safety in a care home?
2. 2What does the fire risk assessment have to cover in a care home?
3. 3What is “stay put” and when should a care home use it instead of full evacuation?
4. 4How do staffing levels and waking night staff affect evacuation capability?
5. 5How does a PEEP work for a resident with mobility or cognitive impairment?
6. 6Where does CQC’s interest in fire safety overlap with the Fire Safety Order?
7. 7What does good fire safety practice look like in a care home?
8. 8What training should care home staff have for fire safety?
9. 9Frequently asked questions

This guide is for registered managers, deputy managers, fire wardens and care staff in residential and nursing care homes in England. It is checked as at 6 November 2026. All examples are invented. For the general duty to assess fire risk that applies to most workplaces, see our guide to the fire risk assessment in five steps; this guide covers what changes when the building is also where people sleep. General information, not legal advice.

Who is the “Responsible Person” for fire safety in a care home?

Article 3 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (the Fire Safety Order, or FSO) defines the “responsible person” as, for a workplace, the employer if the workplace is under their control, or, for other premises, whoever has control of the premises in connection with running a trade, business or other undertaking. In a care home that is normally the registered provider, and in practice the role is usually carried out day to day by the registered manager, who is accountable for making sure the duties under the Order are actually met on the ground.

Article 8 of the Order places a duty on the responsible person to take general fire precautions to ensure the safety of “relevant persons” so far as is reasonably practicable. “Relevant persons” is not limited to staff: it includes every resident, visitor and contractor who might be in the building. That single word is why a care home’s fire safety duties look different from an office’s. An office’s responsible person is mainly protecting people who can walk themselves out. A care home’s responsible person is protecting people who, in the main, cannot.

Having a named responsible person does not mean fire safety is one person’s job. The Order expects the responsible person to appoint enough competent people to help carry out the preventive and protective measures (article 13), and good providers build fire safety into every shift through fire wardens, handover checks and the registered manager’s own walk-rounds, not just an annual paperwork exercise. See our guide on how many fire wardens you need for how that duty translates into a staffing plan.

What does the fire risk assessment have to cover in a care home?

Article 9 of the Order requires the responsible person to make “a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to which relevant persons are exposed” and to review it regularly, and after any significant change to the premises or the way the service is run. There is no care-home-specific article in the Order itself, but the Home Office’s guide to fire safety risk assessment in residential care premises (first published 2006, last confirmed current on GOV.UK 12 September 2023) exists precisely because the generic workplace guidance is not enough for premises where most people need staff help to reach safety. The guide covers non-domestic premises with staff on duty at all times where most of the people living there need a carer’s help in a fire, which fits most residential and nursing care homes.

Fire and rescue services commonly describe this category of premises, where people sleep and cannot be expected to reliably self-evacuate, as a higher-priority “sleeping risk” for inspection and enforcement purposes, which is a practical classification used by fire services rather than a defined term in the Order itself. Whatever it is called locally, the practical consequence is the same: a care home’s fire risk assessment has to look at dependency, not just structure. It should cover, at minimum:

• Means of escape and compartmentation. Fire doors, fire-resisting walls and floors, and whether they are being kept shut, maintained and undamaged, since these are what make a “stay put” or progressive horizontal strategy possible at all. See fire door regulations.
• Dependency and mobility of residents. How many residents can self-evacuate, how many need one carer, two carers, or specialist equipment, and how that changes as residents’ needs change.
• Staffing levels against the evacuation task. Whether the staff actually rostered, including at night, can carry out the evacuation strategy the assessment assumes.
• Ignition sources specific to care. Oxygen concentrators and cylinders, smoking materials, assisted smoking, hoists and other electrical equipment, and laundry and kitchen risks.
• Fire detection and warning. Whether the system is designed for a building where people may be asleep, confused, or unable to hear or respond to an alarm in the usual way.
• Individual evacuation needs. Personal emergency evacuation plans for residents who need specific help, covered below.

The assessment is only as good as the review behind it. A home that has had building work, taken on residents with higher dependency, or changed its staffing structure since the last assessment needs it reviewed before the next incident, not after one.

What is “stay put” and when should a care home use it instead of full evacuation?

“Stay put” and full simultaneous evacuation are two different starting strategies, and the mistake providers make is picking one because it is what another home does, rather than because it matches their own building.

The error providers make most often is importing a stay-put strategy from a different, purpose-built home into a building that has not been assessed as capable of supporting it: an adapted older property, a home with fire doors that are wedged open or poorly maintained, or one where alterations have broken the original compartmentation. A strategy is not a policy choice independent of the building. The fire risk assessment has to test whether the structure can actually deliver what the strategy assumes, and if it cannot, the strategy has to be full evacuation until the structural shortfall is fixed, whatever the home next door does.

Delayed evacuation is a related idea used for residents attached to equipment that cannot be quickly moved, where a suitably fire-protected room may be the safest place for longer, but this still depends on the same structural assumptions, and it is not a substitute for assessing the building honestly.

How do staffing levels and waking night staff affect evacuation capability?

There is no single legal number for how many staff a care home must have on shift; staffing is assessed against the needs of the residents under the Care Quality Commission’s requirements, covered below. But the fire risk assessment has to ask a narrower, sharper question: can the staff who are actually on duty, at the time a fire is most likely to go unnoticed, carry out the evacuation strategy the home has adopted?

This is why waking night staff matter so much to the fire strategy specifically. A home that relies on sleeping-in staff overnight, rather than staff who are awake and mobile, is relying on a smoke or heat detection system and an alarm to do the first job that a waking member of staff would otherwise do: notice the fire early and start moving residents before it spreads. Where a home’s dependency profile means some residents could not be evacuated in time by a sleeping-in staffing model, a fire risk assessment that is honest about the building and the residents will usually point towards waking night cover, not just a louder alarm.

Good practice is to test the plan, not assume it. The Home Office’s residential care guidance recommends either holding a fire drill at night or simulating night-time conditions and staffing levels during the day, precisely because a daytime drill with full staffing tells a home nothing reliable about what would happen at 3am with two members of staff on duty. A plan that works on paper with eight staff rostered and fails with the three who are actually on duty overnight is not a plan; it is a description of what should happen if the fire had the courtesy to start at a different time.

How does a PEEP work for a resident with mobility or cognitive impairment?

A personal emergency evacuation plan, or PEEP, sets out how a specific person will get to safety in a fire, including how many staff that takes and what equipment is needed. In most workplaces a PEEP is written for a small number of staff or visitors who cannot self-evacuate; in a care home it is closer to the norm, because most residents depend on staff to some degree. Our general guide to what a PEEP is covers how to write one, review it and the difference between a PEEP and a GEEP, including the section on how PEEPs work in care homes specifically, so this guide will not repeat that ground.

What is worth adding here is how a PEEP interacts with the two issues above. A resident’s PEEP has to be realistic about which evacuation strategy the home has actually adopted (there is no point writing a PEEP that assumes horizontal evacuation through a fire door that, on inspection, does not reliably close) and it has to be realistic about who is on shift when the plan might be needed, including at night. Mobility impairment is the most visible reason a resident needs a PEEP, but cognitive impairment, including dementia, raises a harder problem: a resident who cannot reliably follow an instruction, recognise an alarm as urgent, or stay where staff ask them to, may need a different kind of support plan from a resident who simply cannot walk unaided. Good homes build the PEEP into the resident’s wider care plan, covered in our guide to dignity in care, so that it is reviewed whenever the resident’s needs change, not left to an annual fire drill to catch up.

Where does CQC’s interest in fire safety overlap with the Fire Safety Order?

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the Fire Safety Order are two separate regimes that both bear on the same building, and providers sometimes assume meeting one automatically satisfies the other.

Under regulation 15 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, all premises and equipment used by the provider must be clean, secure, suitable for their purpose, properly used, properly maintained and appropriately located. CQC guidance treats fire safety, including fire risk assessments, fire door checks and PEEPs, as evidence under this regulation and under regulation 12 (safe care and treatment), which requires providers to assess and mitigate risks to people’s health and safety. CQC does not enforce the Fire Safety Order itself; that sits with the local fire and rescue authority. But an inspector who finds fire doors wedged open, an out-of-date fire risk assessment, or PEEPs that have not been reviewed will treat that as evidence against regulations 12 and 15, separately from whatever action the fire service takes.

The practical effect is that a care home cannot treat fire safety as a specialist, standalone file that only comes out when the fire service visits. The same fire risk assessment, the same fire door maintenance records and the same PEEPs are also what a CQC inspector will ask to see, and gaps show up as a registration and inspection problem as well as a fire safety one. See our guide to care home manager training requirements for how fire safety sits alongside a manager’s wider CQC responsibilities.

What does good fire safety practice look like in a care home?

None of this is complicated in principle, but it takes consistent, unglamorous follow-through. Good homes tend to share a few habits:

• The evacuation strategy is tested against the real building, not assumed from a similar-looking home or an old assessment, and it is revisited after any building work or change in resident dependency.
• Fire doors stay shut and in good repair, with damage, wedging or failed self-closers reported and fixed the same day, because compartmentation is the strategy in a stay-put home, not a backup to it.
• Staffing is planned against the fire strategy, not just care needs, with night staffing, including whether cover is waking or sleeping-in, specifically checked against what the evacuation plan assumes.
• PEEPs are living documents, reviewed when a resident’s mobility, cognition or medical equipment changes, not only at the annual review date.
• Drills test realistic conditions, including a drill or simulation at night-time staffing levels, not only a well-staffed daytime walk-through.
• Every member of staff, including agency and bank staff, knows the home’s actual procedure before their first shift, because the guidance is clear that evacuation in most care homes depends entirely on staff action, not on residents evacuating themselves.

The common thread is specificity. A fire safety file that is accurate about this building, these residents and this week’s rota protects people. A fire safety file that is generically correct about care homes in general, but not checked against the building it is filed for, does not.

What training should care home staff have for fire safety?

All staff, including temporary and agency staff, need induction training in the home’s specific fire procedures before working unsupervised, reflecting the Home Office guidance’s point that evacuation in most care homes relies entirely on staff action. That training should cover the home’s evacuation strategy and why it was chosen, how to raise the alarm, how to use the home’s fire extinguishers and fire doors correctly, and what their own role is in a PEEP for the residents they support. See our guide to fire safety training and UK law for how often refresher training is expected across sectors, and to the Care Certificate, which includes fire safety and health and safety standards for new care staff.

Three Nexis CPD courses build the knowledge behind the steps in this guide:

Together they cost £18 rather than £27 under the pay-for-2-get-3 offer, and employers training 5 or more staff pay £6 a course place on the team plan. These are awareness-level CPD courses, not regulated qualifications, and they do not replace the home’s fire risk assessment, its fire and rescue authority’s requirements, or specialist fire warden or evacuation-equipment training. If you take one, start with Fire Safety in Care Homes: multiple-choice questions, 80% to pass, and an instant certificate.

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Frequently asked questions

Who is legally responsible for fire safety in a care home?

The “responsible person” under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which is normally the registered provider, with the registered manager usually carrying out the duties day to day. The responsible person must take general fire precautions for everyone who might be in the building, not just staff, and must appoint enough competent people to help carry those precautions out.

Does every care home need a “stay put” fire strategy?

No. Stay put and progressive horizontal evacuation only suit purpose-built, well-compartmented buildings where the fire risk assessment confirms the fire doors and fire-resisting structure will actually contain a fire. A building that cannot meet that standard, including many converted or older properties, should use full evacuation instead.

Do care homes have to use waking night staff?

There is no single fixed legal staffing ratio, but the fire risk assessment has to show the staff actually on shift, including overnight, can carry out the home’s evacuation strategy. Where a sleeping-in staffing model cannot reliably support the evacuation the home’s residents would need, that points towards waking night cover.

How is a PEEP different in a care home compared with an office?

In an office a PEEP is usually written for the small number of people who cannot self-evacuate. In a care home most residents depend on staff to some extent, so PEEPs are closer to standard practice, and they need to reflect both the resident’s mobility or cognitive needs and the staffing actually available on each shift, including at night.

Does CQC enforce fire safety separately from the fire service?

CQC does not enforce the Fire Safety Order itself; that is the local fire and rescue authority’s role. But CQC treats fire risk assessments, fire door maintenance and PEEPs as evidence under its own regulations on safe care and treatment and on premises and equipment, so gaps can affect a CQC inspection as well as a fire service visit.

Does fire safety awareness training replace a fire risk assessment or specialist training?

No. Awareness-level CPD training is not a regulated qualification and does not replace the home’s fire risk assessment, the fire and rescue authority’s requirements, or specialist fire warden, evacuation-equipment or building-specific training.

General information, not legal advice. This guide reflects the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the Home Office’s guide to fire safety risk assessment in residential care premises (last confirmed current on GOV.UK 12 September 2023), the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 and the sources named above, as checked on 6 November 2026. Fire safety enforcement is a matter for your local fire and rescue authority, and CQC registration is a separate regime: speak to both and to a qualified fire risk assessor about your own premises. Nexis CPD courses are CPD-accredited awareness training, not regulated qualifications, and they do not replace a fire risk assessment, specialist fire training or your regulator’s requirements.