The chief of Keighley fire brigade has hit out at the number of false alarms caused by the automatic fire detection system at Airedale hospital.

Assistant Divisional Officer John Davies says the main problem is false alarms from the hospital's staff accommodation block which accounts for over a third of the 150 yearly call-outs to the hospital.

He says: "The hospital administrators like to maintain a very sophisticated and high level of fire detection which I believe, especially in the doctors' and nurses' accommodation, to be very OTT. We have had a little bit of a discussion but I don't think it has been satisfactorily resolved."

At present when a fire detector is activated in the accommodation block it is registered at the hospital reception. A call is then automatically put through to the fire brigade from reception.

ADO Davies says a brief check by people in the accommodation block or even at reception would save time and money and potentially save lives.

"All I want is for them to investigate the alarm before they call us.

"It's not unreasonable to check the origin of a call and check if it is legitimate," he says.

ADO Davies says Airedale's amount of automatically detected false alarms is not excessively high when compared to other hospitals.

"He also says the work of the hospital's fire safety officer has done much to reduce the number of call-outs.

He says: "The fire safety officer logs each one and investigates each one and is trying to educate the staff. Where I came from was a different angle. I wanted them to investigate the calls at the hospital before the call-out."

ADO Davies says he has not concerned at false alarms to the hospital.

"It's obviously essential that we do mobilise at the earliest opportunity so it's a balance that we have to achieve" he says.

Richard Fisher, commercial services manager for the Airedale NHS Trust, says: "As far as we are aware we have the correct procedures in place.

"We have addressed the issues and as much as possible we are on top of it now and we strive to maintain that," he added.

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