Premier Inn: Disabled woman 'left behind' during hotel fire alarm

A disabled woman says she was left behind by staff during a fire evacuation at a Premier Inn hotel.

Dr Hannah Barham-Brown, 35, was staying at the County Hall Premier Inn on the South Bank, central London, when a fire alarm went off at 01:15 GMT on Thursday.

Staff had earlier told her they would collect her in the event of a fire, but she says "no-one came".

Premier Inn insists all procedures were followed.

Dr Barham-Brown, a trainee GP from Leeds, and a former deputy leader of the Women's Equality Party, was in London to attend a House of Lords event as a governor of disability transport scheme Motability.

She said hotel staff had told her she would be placed on a list of customers to be escorted out of the building in the event of a fire, if she stayed in her room.

When she tried to return to the hotel that evening via a disabled access gate she had been told to use, she found it padlocked shut, she said.

An assistance bell went unanswered until her colleague went to find a staff member.

She said she waited for more than 10 minutes in her room after the fire alarm sounded, but "it quickly became evident that nobody was coming to get me".

Dr Barham-Brown, an ambulatory wheelchair user, went to the stairwell where other guests were evacuating, but "unfortunately no-one came", she said.

"Fortunately, two of my colleagues were staying in the same hotel and came and got me and basically helped me... hobble down four flights of stairs and I then ended up sitting on a pavement waiting for somebody to come."

After the fire evacuation the building's lifts weren't working, she said, and the accessible entrance was locked again, so colleagues had to carry her up steps into the hotel.

She said staff told her they had divide roles between them, and there had been no-one left to come and get her.

"So I said: 'Does that mean I would have just been left there?', and they said: 'Yes, I suppose so'."

Dr Barham-Brown, who shared the incident on social media, said she frequently travelled alone but the incident had been "distressing and terrifying" and made her "incredibly anxious".

"To suddenly realise that I am so far down their priority list that they weren't going to come and get me out if there was a fire is incredibly galling; it makes you feel like you're not worthy of being kept safe," she said.

The incident comes after a blind woman said Premier Inn's Enfield branch kicked her out after staff accused her guide dog of being "fake".

"I think as a matter of absolute urgency, Premier Inn need to reassess all of their disability policies and the safety of disabled customers," Dr Barham-Brown added.

A Premier Inn spokesperson said the company had contacted Dr Barham-Brown but was "confident our team behaved professionally".

In a statement, it said the hotel's listed building status "places constraints on the way we can operate".

It said the security gates were managed by the landlord, with whom it would be discussing access.

"We have robust fire evacuation procedures and are confident these were followed correctly on the occasion of this false alarm," it continued.

"A team member was dispatched to assist Dr Barham-Brown within minutes of it sounding but found she had already chosen to leave."

Dr Barham-Brown said she was considering taking legal action following the incident.

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