Evacuation Chair Training

Evacuation Chair Training | Operator Course | Nationwide Private Delivery

Because installing the chair is not the same as being ready to use it.

When your building installed evacuation chairs, it fulfilled one part of its legal obligation to protect everyone — including those who cannot use stairs independently — in an emergency. The other part is ensuring that designated operators are trained to use them safely and confidently.

The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER) requires that anyone operating work equipment — including evacuation chairs — is adequately trained. UK Government guidance goes further, specifying that evacuation chair training must cover three distinct areas: disability awareness, evacuation etiquette, and moving, lifting, and handling techniques. Many courses do not cover all three. Ours does.

An untrained evacuation chair operator is not just non-compliant — they are a safety risk to the person they are trying to help, to themselves, and to others trying to evacuate around them. Training must be taken seriously.

What You Will Learn

• The legal framework: PUWER 1998, the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, and your employer’s PEEP obligations under the Equality Act 2010
• Understanding vulnerability and the diverse range of conditions that may affect evacuation — including mobility impairment, visual or hearing impairment, cognitive impairment, pregnancy, and temporary injury
• Disability awareness in an emergency context: communication, dignity, and reassurance
• Evacuation etiquette: maintaining calm, giving clear instructions, and managing fear
• Manual handling principles for evacuation chair operation: safe technique, operator protection, and passenger safety
• Pre-use inspection: what to check before every emergency, not just after the service visit
• Hands-on practice with evacuation chair models — including common types likely to be found in your building type

Course Details

Why On-Site Delivery Is Strongly Recommended

Evacuation chairs work differently on different staircases. A shallow-tread staircase in an office building requires different technique from a steep, narrow service staircase in a listed building. Training your operators on your own equipment, on your own stairs, in the environment they will actually use in an emergency, produces measurably better preparedness than attending a generic course elsewhere.

For private course bookings at your premises, we bring the equipment. Where you have your own evacuation chairs on-site, we use those too — ensuring your operators are trained on exactly what they will reach for when the alarm sounds.

Request a private course quote →

Note:

The Medical Devices Directive (93/42/EEC) classify evacuation chairs and sledges as Class 1 Medical Devices, alongside wheelchairs, hospital beds, etc. As such they fall under the requirements of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER).

This means there is a legal obligation on equipment providers to ensure adequate staff training, as well as servicing of the equipment, to ensure that the equipment can be operated safely during emergency situations. The maintenance regime and requirements are determined by the equipment manufacturer under the Medical Devices Directive with servicing generally undertaken by a competent person every 12 months.

Related Courses

Organisations with evacuation sledges, ski-sheets, or combined chair-and-sledge provisions should also consider our Evacuation Sledge Training and Combined Chair & Sledge Training courses.

For organisations looking to build an in-house training capability, our Evacuation Chair Train the Trainer course covers six different chair models and equips your internal trainer with the breadth of knowledge needed to deliver training, update PEEPs, and conduct equipment risk assessments across your estate.

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Enquire about scheduled dates or private booking | Request a quote | Call us: 01565 746555

Pre-requisites:

Personnel:

• No prior experience or evacuation chair training is required for this course.
• A reasonable level of physical fitness & strength is required to use the chairs safely (despite what some manufacturers claim!).
• Those with back or shoulder problems, mobility issues or of a nervous disposition will find this course challenging & we don’t recommend they undertake the course.
• Please ensure that you wear flat shoes (not high-heels, etc) on the day of the course. See our Joining Instructions for more information.
• Evacuation chair operators of a petite stature (under approx 5’5″/165cm) and therefore typically body mass and strength, tend to ensure a swift delivery of the evacuee to the bottom of the stairs and as such may prefer to be certified as an evacuation chair assistant rather than operator.

Evacuation Chairs:

• When courses run at your venue, we highly recommend that we use your evacuation equipment where possible. This provides staff with hands-on knowledge of (and confidence in) the available equipment.
• Please note that evacuation chairs must be serviced every 12 months. If your chair(s) haven’t, we won’t be able to use your chairs during the course.
• If you don’t have a chair available for use, we can bring a popular model of evacuation chair for use during the course. If you wish to use our evacuation chair, please ensure that you advise us when arranging your course booking.

Candidates:

• All scheduled/open courses have a minimum and maximum number of candidates that we can take on a course.
  • Minimum: We need a minimum of 3 candidates booked on an open/scheduled course for the course to run. Click here for more details.
  • Maximum: To ensure your safety at the top of the stairs, we can only take a maximum of 12 candidates per course.
• Should you have more than 12 candidates for the course, please contact us to discuss private courses.

Geographical coverage:

• This evacuation chair training is available to candidates across the UK. We can deliver it outside the UK but the protocols that we teach to meet current UK guidelines.

Venue:

• Scheduled/Open Courses:
  • These run at our training centre in Knutsford, Cheshire.
• Private Courses:
  • Why not arrange to have a private courses run at your workplace? Simply fill in our quote request form and we will get back to you with a personalised quotation.
  • We can run this course for you at your premises anywhere in the country with a maximum of 12 people per course. Naturally you’ll also need to have a suitable staircase at your premises that we can use during the course.
  • While we will bring our own training chairs, we do request that you make one of your evacuation chair available on your course. This is to ensure that your colleagues are familiar with how they operate.

Joining instructions:

• Visit this page to read the course joining instructions.