Carbon monoxide poisoning causes
approximately 40 deaths and 200 serious injuries a year. About 4000 people
require hospital treatment – more than 10 a day, on average.
Carbon monoxide alarms save lives.
While the financial cost of an alarm is small - basic models start at £15 -
there are huge human costs to not installing one.
In a survey for the Carbon
Monoxide – Be Alarmed! campaign, only 39% of respondents said that they
have a carbon monoxide alarm. It is likely that the real proportion is much
lower. Safety checks carried out by the fire service in over 22,000 homes
across Merseyside found that less than one in ten homes had a carbon monoxide
alarm.
Of those without a carbon monoxide
alarm, 42% said this was because they have a smoke alarm, suggesting that there
is a high level of confusion between carbon monoxide and smoke alarms.
Surveys suggest that 88% of homes
now have smoke alarms, although the private-rented sector, at 82%, still lags
behind owner-occupied, council and housing association homes. But this is still
a significant improvement from 62% just a decade ago.
Building regulations require the
provision of smoke alarms in all new dwellings but at present, landlords are
not legally required to install or maintain smoke alarms in their properties.
The regulations also require that a carbon monoxide alarm must be installed in
any property when a solid fuel heating system, for example, a wood burning
stove, is first installed. There is no requirement for any other property to
have a carbon monoxide alarm.
The Government has got the powers to
insist that rented homes do have smoke and carbon monoxide alarms but it has
failed to act. It said that it will only introduce the necessary statutory
instruments to make smoke alarms mandatory if this is supported by a quite
separate review of the building regulations. Although that review has been
completed, the government has still refused to say if it will act, and, if so,
when.
Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarms
cost peanuts, save lives and cut the number of serious illness and injuries.
The government should just get on with it.