Information for Care Homes
Our Carefree range is designed to overcome the issues of self-closing doors in Care homes, giving residents the independence, privacy and safety other door systems simply cannot offer.
Fire regulations now require bedroom doors to be fitted with self-closing devices. This is important from a fire safety perspective; however it limits the choice of residents to keep their doors open, hampers their mobility and makes additional work for staff having to help residents into and out of their rooms.
Furthermore residents can often feel insecure and isolated if their bedroom doors are shut; yet fire regulations require those very doors to be kept closed. Unsurprisingly residents and staff are tempted to wedge doors open, which not only causes a potential trip hazard, but more importantly poses a serious fire risk and contravenes regulations.
There are many types of door holding products on the market that act against the force of the door closer, but none are really suited to the care industry. Typically these require residents to grapple with buttons or plungers to release the door and can introduce permanent warping of the door meaning expensive replacements.
Our approach has been to redesign the door closer itself and from a resident’s perspective, make the door appear “normal”. For example, replacing the closer with Carefree Plus means the door is presented to the resident free of any closing force; it can be easily opened, closed or left open in any position. However when the fire alarms are activated the door slowly and safely closes to meet fire regulations.
Click here to see a video of our Director, Mark Batt-Rawden explaining at the Bournemouth Care show.
In addition to product sales, we also offer a full installation service into both operational and new build care facilities. All of our installers are employees of Holdfire and are CRB checked. They are specialists in their field and take pride in concealing our infrastructure, preserving the look of the home and its décor.
