The classification game: why ‘extra care’ isn’t ‘care’

The Business Sprinkler Alliance (BSA) continues to press the case for a fundamental rethink of how fire safety regulations treat housing for vulnerable people. At the heart of the issue lies a simple but consequential question: what counts as a ‘care home,’ writes Iain Cox, Secretary of the Business Sprinkler Alliance?

Recent updates to Approved Document B (ADB) and Technical Booklet E mean that, where a building is registered as a care home, sprinkler systems are now mandatory for new builds. On paper, this looks like progress. In practice, it only tells part of the story.

Extra care housing, the model under which Beechmere Retirement Village operated before the devastating fire that destroyed it in 2019, simply doesn't fall into this bracket. Despite housing elderly and often less mobile residents, many of whom require regular care and assistance, extra care schemes are typically classified in regulatory terms as something in a grey zone. The result is that a building can be functionally indistinguishable from the characteristics of a care home in terms of who lives there and what assistance they may need in a fire, yet sit entirely in a blind spot in the regulatory guidance when it comes to the use of sprinkler protection.

This isn't a new observation. The BSA has raised it before, and the recent proposed amendments to ADB have done nothing to close it. For extra care facilities, the proposal is for enhanced fire detection and a definition change. Outside this, the guidance remains the same regardless of the realities of who actually lives in these buildings and how quickly they could evacuate in an emergency.

The frustrating part is that government is not unaware of this gap. There has been activity, consultations, statements, and research, but activity is not the same as action. From where the BSA sits, it increasingly looks like the cards are being shuffled rather than the underlying problem being addressed. Definitions get tweaked, guidance documents get amended at the margins, but the core inconsistency, that two buildings housing equally vulnerable people can be treated entirely differently depending on a classification on paper, remains untouched.

Regulator-commissioned research into this area has also left much to be desired. The BSA finds it odd that despite making so many observations, the research produced inconclusive and contradictory findings on fire alarms. It's fair to say this has not given the sector the clarity or direction it needs. In regards to the question of sprinklers, this was pushed into the future of some unknown ‘phase 2’ which, again, is odd as this would have been one of the key tasks for the research in the first place. Where there was an opportunity to properly interrogate the risks faced by extra care residents and recommend a proportionate regulatory response, what has emerged instead feels like a missed opportunity, falling short of giving policymakers the evidence base required to act decisively.

A growing population

This matters because the population living in extra care housing is growing. As the UK's demographic profile shifts and more people choose or are guided towards these models of independent-but-supported living, the number of people potentially affected by this regulatory blind spot will only increase. Waiting for another Beechmere-scale incident to force change is not an acceptable approach. Slamming the stable door is a poor substitute for rational regulation.

The BSA's position remains consistent: classification should not be the determining factor in whether a building receives life-saving fire protection. The characteristics of the people living there, their age, mobility, and reliance on assistance, should be central to the conversation. The BSA urges government to look again, thoroughly and rationally, at where extra care facilities sit in the fire safety landscape, to ensure that future guidance reflects the needs of residents rather than the convenience of categorisation.

For more information about the BSA visit the www.business-sprinkler-alliance.org