Liverpool Hope University: Deaf Alerter and Refuge Alerter
Liverpool Hope University, in the North West of England, has a long history of providing higher education since its first college was founded some 180 years ago.
Today, it has three campuses located across Liverpool. Its main teaching campus, Hope Park, is also its largest campus. Hope Park includes spaces to live, work and study – ranging from buildings with impressive traditional architecture, to innovative newbuilds.
To support both safety and equality across the Hope Park campus, the University opted for Alerter Group’s market-leading Deaf Alerter system, as well as the Emergency Voice Communication (EVC) system, Refuge Alerter.
The Challenge
The University is committed to the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion, and seeks to ensure that everyone on-site is treated with respect and dignity and has equal access to opportunities.
With a large number of buildings on its campus, the University wanted to ensure that everyone on-site who is Deaf or hard or hearing would be able to receive emergency messaging notifications if a fire alarm was to go off.
In addition the University wanted to ensure that disabled people are able to evacuate buildings safely in the event of a fire or other emergency, with the aid of an emergency voice communication (EVC) system. The University’s wide-ranging and different types of buildings – including older buildings – meant that a wireless EVC system was important.
The Solution
Alerter Group provided two solutions to Liverpool Hope University to help them meet their safety requirements:
- The installation of our Deaf Alerter system; and
- Installation of our Refuge Alerter system
The solutions were installed campus-wide, in both teaching and residential blocks.
Deaf Alerter
Deaf Alerter is a radio-based emergency fire alarm and messaging system, which works to the International Roaming Standard. Transmitters were installed in buildings across the campus, with stickers placed on the entry doors of those buildings to show that they were covered.
If a fire alarm goes off in any of the buildings covered by Deaf Alerter, a priority message will be sent to all ‘Alerter’ devices located within, or just outside, that building. The Alerter devices should be carried by Deaf or Hard of Hearing individuals. When the Alerters receive a message, they will vibrate strongly, and information will be able to be displayed on their screens.
Refuge Alerter
The solution for Hope Campus was to roll out our Wireless Refuge Alerter system across all buildings on the campus. Refuge Alerter is radio-based, meaning that the system could be easily retrofitted to existing buildings, as well as rolled out to any new buildings in the future.
With Refuge Alerter, every single refuge point on the campus was linked back to a monitored central location.
The end result was cost-effective (due to no requirement on retrofitting cabling over large areas), with low disruption. The solution was compliant to BS5839-9.
The Result
Since placing its first order for Deaf Alerter transmitters, Liverpool Hope has also placed new orders for several Night Alerter units.
This means that as well as having day-time emergency messaging for Deaf and Hard of Hearing people, it’s also able to provide enhanced night time safety.
Find out more about Night Alerter in the video opposite.
