Personal Safety

Safe and Well is a free home fire safety visit, tailored to an individual’s needs that can support members of our community to help protect them and their home from fire.

During a Safe and Well visit we will:
Identify any potential fire risks and discuss with the occupier how they can prevent or reduce the risk.
Ensure occupants have working smoke alarms, install where necessary, and advise on maintenance and testing.
Ensure occupants have Carbon monoxide detectors where needed, install if necessary and discuss the dangers.
Help put together a household escape plan and identify any mobility issues that may impede an evacuation.
Issue fire retardant bedding, furniture throws and nightwear where needed.
Give basic advice on topics such as falls prevention and smoking.
We may identify a need for advice, support or intervention from other agencies. If required we will engage with the individual to adopt a ‘multi agency approach’ and may share information and work collaboratively with other partner agencies in order to reduce risk.

Who do we visit?
Whilst we’d like to offer visits to all Hampshire and Isle of Wight residents unfortunately we aren’t able to. Instead, we focus our visits on the most vulnerable people in our community.

The following list of vulnerabilities may indicate a person is at more risk of harm from fire:

Cognitive impairments – which would mean a person might not understand what to do in the event of a fire
Mobility impairments – meaning a person’s ability to escape from a property in an emergency would be hindered
Signs of carelessness with smoking materials – burn marks evident within the property
Substance misuse – which may impair a person’s ability to exit a property in an emergency
Hoarding or high levels of clutter – this can obstruct a person’s ability to exit a property as well as provide high levels of fuel to feed a fire
Returning home from the hospital and there are fire concerns in the home, e.g. burn marks on bedding, furniture, or carpets. Electrical faults, unsafe practices

Southern Water offers assistance to people struggling to pay their water bills and priority service for vulnerable people