Good points and very worrying points at County Council meeting

The Select Committee meeting last Friday discussed the Action Plan for implementing the Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP). On the positive side was the assurance that representative bodies would be involved in the work streams associated with the plan. 

Also welcome was the establishment of a task & finish group to look at On Call Firefighter recruitment and retention. Long overdue, this was first proposed by a County Councillor around three years ago, but the suggestion was arrogantly rejected. It was disappointing that the Cabinet Member tried to stop it this time, but the Chief Fire Officer welcomed it and the Select Committee agreed.

Most worrying though is pushing through a reduction of standard crewing from five to four, and plans to look at ways to cut minimum crewing of On Call crewed fire engines to just three firefighters. 

Vanishing Crew

Officer-in-charge, driver/pump operator, plus

"Officer and driver have specific tasks. It is the crew in the back that fight the fire and carry out rescues."

The Cabinet Member, Debbie Kennard, claimed that the IRMP “was very clear” about standard crewing changing to four, which is not the case. It is only mentioned on page 75 of the IRMP and that did not make it clear it was a cut from five. The public could have assumed it was an increase from 3 to 4. With no detail and no reference in the document to the implications, the public have been denied the full facts and the opportunity to consider and comment on this retrograde step.

Standard crew cut from 5 to 4

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer harked back to when he was a firefighter at Crawley and said that standard crewing on one of their fire engines was four (it was five on their other whole-time crewed fire engine). That suggests he does not understand the full implications of the proposals. He was in the fortunate position at Crawley of arriving at any building fire with nine firefighters on two fire engines. 

At most of the County’s other stations, with whole-time crews, they would arrive with just five firefighters on one fire engine. The second crew to support them would be five, ten or even fifteen minutes away. Cutting those crews to just four will make life more difficult and dangerous for them. Firefighters have accepted crewing with four, when another fire engine on that station is crewed with five, and in exceptional circumstances, but forcing them to always crew with just four is unreasonable.

Minimum crew may drop from 4 to 3

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer also mentioned that On Call stations used to be allowed to respond with just three firefighters, but said it was stopped because four were needed to use some equipment, such as the main ladder. That was a factor, but the main reason it was stopped was that the Chief Fire Officer considered it to be unsafe and risked putting firefighters in an invidious position. In a rescue situation, it was felt unreasonable to force them to choose between having to wait for back up, with a strong likelihood that the victim or victims would not survive, and ignoring procedures to take exceptional risks to try and rescue people.

Such potential dilemmas have not gone away, technology cannot remove those dilemmas, and there is no justification for returning to an unsafe system. These crewing cuts also ignore the extensive work done on task analysis, which identified the minimum numbers required to initially attend an incident and operate effectively and safely.

Real life scenario posed - CFO evades specific answer

Councillor Michael Jones posed a scenario where a crew of three arrive at a house with flames coming out of a downstairs window and, in the crowd, a woman says that her child is somewhere in the house upstairs. He asked if the Chief Fire Officer would expect his crew to attempt a rescue wearing breathing apparatus, or attempt a rescue without breathing apparatus, or do nothing until another crew arrives five, ten or fifteen minutes later?"

His answer, "that is why we've got to do the piece of work", and he also said he didn't think it helpful to speculate on scenarios. I am not surprised that he ducked that question. It is difficult to see anyone, who might face a potential Health & Safety Executive prosecution, approving procedures that would permit either of the two rescue options with a crew of three. He may not want to speculate in the meeting, but I sincerely hope that any review properly considers all potential scenarios. 

Crews of four less effective, less flexible and less safe

The Chief Fire Officer said that they would send more fire engines when there were not enough firefighters on the first one, but the need identified by task analysis is for enough firefighters to be present to carry out simultaneous actions. So when the answer is five, you need five on the first fire engine to arrive, not four, with the fifth firefighter arriving on another fire engine several minutes later. When that happens, the fifth firefighter's task or tasks are not done or are delayed. At best that slows firefighting or rescue, at worst, key actions have to be delayed until help arrives, or safety is compromised, or both.

The Chief Fire Officer spoke about preferring more fire engines crewed with four, to having less fire engines available with crews of five. That may look better on paper, but in practice it is not. With crews of four you often have to send more fire engines to get the total number of firefighters needed at an incident, than you do if they are crewed by five firefighters. That reduces operational effectiveness and cover for other incidents.

Just 10 fire engines available

Consider what happens when there are just ten fire engines available in West Sussex. Sadly, that is sometimes the case. The difference in crewing significantly affects the number of incidents that can be dealt with at the same time. One of the challenges for the service is that several incidents can occur at the same time, so that must be considered when planning resources. For safe and effective action a building fire needs a minimum of nine firefighters and a vehicle fire needs a minimum of five.

Crewed by five firefighters they can deal with:

5 Building fires or 10 vehicle fires

Crewed by four firefighters they can only deal with:

3 building fires or 5 vehicle fires

Crews of four, instead of five, make the service less effective, less flexible and less safe. These are some of the unintended consequences that Councillor Simon Oakley wisely said must be considered.

Will the Cabinet Member listen to the real experts?

Finally, when asked about safety, the Cabinet Member said that she relied on experts. Now that is fine, if she is listening to the real experts - the firefighters who respond to emergencies on fire engines every day. Those who face the danger, know the demands first hand, and suffer the consequences of inadequate resourcing. Their representatives have already said the proposals are unsafe. 

Sadly, I fear she means the very senior officers, for whom rolling up to a serious incident on the first fire engine is a distant memory, and who are under Council instructions to cut spending on front-line resources. No matter how sincere they are about keeping people safe, without adequate resources that becomes impossible.