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Nurse call, refuge and toilet alarm questions, answered from your manuals.

Cable limits, reset rules and fault indications are already set out in your installation manuals. Lingo turns them into guides your technical team approves, so the electrician on site gets the steps for the system in front of them, at any hour.

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Installer: Disabled toilet alarm on the ground floor won’t cancel.
Lingo: Where are you pressing reset? 1. At the controller outside the toilet 2. At the reset button inside
Installer: 1
Lingo: 1. On this kit, the call cancels only at the reset button inside the toilet. 2. Press the reset button beside the WC and watch the overdoor light. 3. If the call does not cancel, ask for a person.

Toilet alarm will not cancel

Published
Start

QUESTION

Where are you pressing reset?

ANSWERS

  1. 1.At the controller outside the toilet
  2. 2.At the reset button inside
At the controller outside the toilet

FIX

1. On this kit, the call cancels only at the reset button inside the toilet. 2. Press the reset button beside the WC and watch the overdoor light. 3. If the call does not cancel, ask for a person.

Your manuals already hold the answer. The cable limit changes with every unit added.

One refuge system’s manual gives a maximum ring length for each size of system. It rises to 2,500m with 12 units, then falls to 475m with 32. The right line depends on the site, so a guide asks how many units are on the ring before it sends a figure.

Maximum ring length by units on the ring

One refuge system, 1.5mm cable, from its installation and commissioning manual (2024)

  • 4 units1,000m
  • 8 units1,800m
  • 12 units2,500m
  • 16 units1,750m
  • 20 units1,300m
  • 24 units950m
  • 28 units700m
  • 32 units475m
between units, at most, on one refuge system with the cable its maker recommends
200m
before an acknowledged call returns on one toilet alarm kit, until it is reset inside the toilet
120 sec
in one toilet alarm kit’s design and installation guide, with no fault-finding table
12 pages

Your manuals in. One guide out, that asks how big the system is first.

You send the manuals for one system. Lingo drafts guides from them, your technical team checks each draft against the source and publishes it, and the installer gets the steps for the system in front of them.

Your documents for one range

  • Refuge installation and commissioning manualRing table
  • Nurse call features and operationCall types
  • Zone call controller data sheetReset rules
  • Toilet alarm kit design guide12 pages
  • Cable design guideLengths
  • Pager transmitter set-upSurvey

Adding an outstation to a refuge ring

Published
Start

QUESTION

How many outstations will be on the ring?

ANSWERS

  1. 1.Up to 12
  2. 2.13 or more
13 or more

FIX

1. Check the ring length against the table for that number of units. 2. Check the termination reading at each end of the ring. 3. New battery calculations are needed: ask for a person.

  • The limit depends on the count

    One refuge manual’s maximum ring length rises with the first 12 units, then falls. A guide asks how many units are on the ring before it sends a figure.

  • Calls reset where they were made

    NHS guidance for bedhead services says it “should not be possible to cancel the call at any other position”. Kit guides set their own reset rules, and a guide follows them.

  • Some answers belong to your team

    One manual asks installers who add outstations later to contact the maker “to perform battery calculations”. A guide hands that to your people.

What installers ask, and what a guide sends back.

Four kinds of system, four sets of questions. For each, a guide puts your documented checks in order and sends them one message at a time.

An electrician in an accessible toilet holds the red alarm pull cord in one hand and reads his phone in the other.

On site, at the pull cord

The installer messages your number and gets your steps for the system in front of him.

  • Nurse call

    “The call won’t cancel and the overdoor light is flashing red and green.”

    A guide sends What each light pattern means on this system, and where that call type can be reset. Some calls, such as staff attack, reset only with a code at the controller on one system; the guide says so.

  • Disabled refuges

    “Outstation 4 is showing a line fault.”

    A guide sends The loop checks in your manual’s order: termination at each end, loop voltage and addressing, then the span and ring limits for the cable and number of units.

  • Accessible toilet alarms

    “Which cable runs from the ceiling pull to the controller?”

    A guide sends Cable and segregation as your kit guide sets out, the connections it warns can damage a device, and the reset rule for that kit.

  • Deaf and hard-of-hearing alerting

    “The pager didn’t go off when we tested the fire alarm.”

    A guide sends The pairing, radio and signal checks your manual lists. Coverage surveys and the fire panel interface stay with your team where your documents say so.

Your technical team checks every guide and sees every conversation.

  • Every guide is published by your team

    They can edit a guide, write one by hand or unpublish it. When a question comes up that no guide covers, they can add the answer.

  • You choose who can use it

    Approve the electrical and fire contractors who install your systems, number by number or as a list.

  • Your team in your hours

    Guides answer at any hour. An installer can ask for a person at any point: in the hours you set, your team replies in the same conversation with the earlier messages in front of them. Outside them, the installer gets your out-of-hours message.

  • Every conversation is kept

    With the installer’s name and number, the system and the guide used, so your team can see what is being asked about each range.

A technical support engineer on a headset follows a wiring diagram in an installation manual at his desk, with a call unit and an overdoor light on a test mat beside him.

The questions that need your people reach them

With the system, the call type and the checks already made in the conversation.

Your team decides what gets a guide. Fire strategy and design stay with people.

A guide sends the steps your team published, in your order. Questions that change how a life-safety system behaves can go straight to your people.

The alarm system had been switched off at a local isolation switch, possibly to silence a spurious activation.

NHS Estates and Facilities Notice EFN2301, January 2023

The notice followed a fall in an accessible toilet where the user pulled the cord and the alarm did not activate. A guide sends your documented checks for a spurious activation, and isolating the alarm stays with your team.

A guide can take

  • What a light pattern, a panel message or a fault indication means, and the checks your manual lists
  • Cable, span and ring limits for the system and number of units
  • Loop, termination and addressing checks
  • Reset rules for each call type, as your documents set them
  • Pager pairing and radio checks

Your technical team keeps

  • Cause and effect, and fire alarm interfaces

    The FIA says the programme “is determined from the Fire Strategy/Fire Risk Assessment”, not by the fire alarm designer.

  • Variations from the standard

    The FIA’s guide to BS 5839-1:2025 says “all variations need justification”.

  • Disabling or isolating an alarm

    During servicing, the same guide says disablement “should be kept to a practicable minimum”.

  • Adding units after handover

    Where your manual asks for new battery calculations, the guide hands the question to your team.

  • Where devices go

    Beacons or pagers, and where outstations and pull cords sit, are design decisions for the site.

  • Who services nurse call

    HTM 08-03: “Only trained, authorised and competent persons should be appointed by management” to service and maintain bedhead services.

  • BS 5839-9

    Refuges. Approved Document B says refuges should have an EVC system complying with BS 5839-9, with Type B outstations.

    Source

  • Pager or beacon

    Deaf alerting. Where people may be alone, a visual and audible alarm “may be the most appropriate solution”; where the population is managed, a vibrating pager “may be more appropriate”.

    Source

  • BS 5839-1:2025

    Fire alarms. Published on 30 April 2025, replacing the 2017 edition.

    Source

  • HTM 08-03

    Nurse call. Bedhead calls are cancelled at the associated reset unit, and nowhere else.

    Source

What it takes to start.

On a stair landing marked as a refuge, an installer in a hi-vis vest works on an emergency voice communication outstation with its cover off.
  1. 1

    Send the documents for one product

    One system’s installation and commissioning manual, its programming guide and the cable design guide that goes with it.

  2. 2

    See your own draft guides

    Lingo drafts a guide for each task. We go through the drafts with you in a 15-minute walkthrough.

  3. 3

    Your team checks and publishes

    Checking each draft against the manual is the main work. Your team corrects it and publishes it, and can edit or unpublish it at any time.

  4. 4

    Start with people you choose

    Approve a first group of electrical and fire contractors. Each conversation is kept with the system and the guide used.

Questions call system manufacturers ask

We make nurse call, refuge and toilet alarm systems. Does one setup cover them all?

Yes. Each system has its own guides, priced by the number of products you support. A guide asks which system and which call type before it sends a step.

Can it cover panels and kits we no longer sell?

Yes, where the documents exist. Each product has its own guides, and a guide asks which generation or variant is fitted.

Who can use it?

The installers and contractors you approve, by phone number. You can start with a few contractors and add more as a list.

Will a guide change how a system works with the fire alarm?

No. Cause and effect and fire alarm interfaces are set by the site’s fire strategy and your people. Your team decides which procedures get a guide, and those questions can go straight to a person.

What happens when an installer asks something no guide covers?

The installer can ask for a person at any point. Your team is notified by email and replies in the same conversation, in the hours you set. They can then add the answer to a guide.

How is it priced?

By the number of products you support, from £500 a month for five products. There is no setup fee, and no limit on installers or conversations.

Further reading

Sources, read 22 October 2026: installation manuals, kit guides and data sheets from UK makers of nurse call, refuge and toilet alarm systems (issues dated 2015 to 2024); Approved Document B, Volume 2, 2026 amendments; NHS England, HTM 08-03, Bedhead services; NHS Estates and Facilities Notice EFN2301, January 2023; FIA, Guide to the changes in BS 5839-1:2025, June 2025; FIA, Guidance for BS 7273-6:2019, December 2020; NSI, Technical Bulletin 0070, revision of BS 5839-1, May 2025.

Send us one system’s manuals.

We’ll convert them and show you your own guide in a 15-minute walkthrough.

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