Footage of staff trying to operate alarm panel is shown to inquiry

Families of those killed in the Rosepark Care Home fire yesterday watched CCTV footage of staff trying frantically to operate an alarm panel as flames ripped through the building.

The fatal accident inquiry into the tragedy, which claimed the lives of 14 elderly residents, heard from a health and safety expert that the poorly designed alarm system would have been hard for nurses to understand.

Video footage from the night of the fire at the home in Uddingston, Lanarkshire, showed four staff members struggling to work the alarm while smoke and flames spread through another part of the building.

In the grainy black and white film, recorded about 4.30am on January 31, 2004, nurses and carers are seen growing increasingly concerned at the alarm panel before eventually calling the fire brigade around seven minutes after sirens first sounded.

Care assistant Irene Richmond had previously broken down in tears after being shown the footage of herself and her colleagues during the inquiry’s early stages.

An employee of the home was seen noticing something on the panel at 4.29am, and briefly approached it before fetching colleagues. Lively discussion followed, with the nurses standing round the panel pointing at it and gesturing at an index showing zones around the home.

Ergonomics specialist Mike Gray, who works with the Health and Safety Executive, told the inquiry yesterday that the instructions, printed in tiny letters under the alarm, would not have been “immediately clear” in the heat of the moment.

Staff may have had difficulties operating it because of a lack of training or experience, said Mr Gray, an expert on the interaction between humans and machinery. The control panel did not comply with international standards he helped define, he said.

The system at Rosepark had recently been changed when the fire struck, the inquiry has heard, and not all staff had been shown how to use it.

Mr Gray said the instructions on the new control panel were “significantly more difficult to follow” than the older alarm system with which staff were familiar.

Vital seconds could have been wasted because the index of alarm points in the home did not correspond to the warning lights on the control panel, further confusing staff who were already under pressure.

Mr Gray, who inspected the control panel the month after the fire, reported to the Health and Safety Executive: “In my opinion, the arrangement and layout …did not adequately support staff.”

The inquiry continues.