Fire and rescue services should provide smoke alarms that comply with the new BSI specification for deaf and hard-of-hearing people, urges RNID, the largest charity representing the 9 million deaf and hard-of-hearing people in the UK.
In a survey of 4000 of its members, a third said they would have difficulty waking up to a conventional smoke alarm, especially since hearing aids are taken out at night. Some 23% said they would struggle to know if the alarm went off during the day.
Earlier this year, BSI published a national standard on smoke alarms for deaf people. Alarm systems that comply must have a flashing light, standard audio alert and a vibrating pad, which is placed under the mattress or pillow to shake the user awake when the alarm detects smoke. Each of these features must meet the performance requirements outlined by the standard in order to be compliant.
RNID wants to see all fire and rescue services providing BSI compliant smoke alarms to deaf and hard-of-hearing people in their community,” said Mark Downs, executive director of technology & enterprise at RNID.
