London Fire Brigade has recently announced that it will begin to fine companies if they have to attend more than 9 false call-outs in the course of a year. They are planning to charge £290 plus VAT for the 10th and any subsequent call outs in any 12 month period.  It is thought that many other fire authorities will follow this lead. At present the London Fire Brigade do not intend applying this sanction to care homes or domestic properties but it will apply to all other workplaces eg hospitals, factories, colleges, retail premisesIt is estimated that there were over 40,000 false call outs in London alone last year and that these accounted for a third of all incidents.  This is clearly a major issue and worryingly when a crew is attending a false call-out it can not be on call to attend a genuine incident.

The best way to ensure that you are not faced with this kind of bill is to make sure that your alarm system is functioning correctly and is properly maintained at all times eg make sure that you have an up to date service contract and that it is set correctly so that it cannot be triggered by normal working processes in your premises.  If false alarms do occur then always investigate them fully to establish the cause of problem and deal with the root cause fully to prevent repeat incidents.