Legal lights for reatined firefighters

[Andy Cole]

For example the pager would display number 1 on the pager LCD screen if it was a Persons reported call, 2 for smaller emergencies and say a number 3 for special service / non urgent assistance.

Just another thought on this...

In an ideal world everyone would respond to every call in the same way but in a realistic one can you honestly see the same response to a 'number 3' call at 3.30am when it's freezing cold, blowing a gale and pouring with rain??  Let's hope it's not that one that turns out to be my nursing home job!!

[maineroad]

as i said its all about money ,if you want a rapid turnout its w/t or day crewing ,houses at the back everything else is just a make do ,there are ret sta doing in excess of 600/700 calls per year this is not what the ret service was meant for ,risk assess 600 turnouts by 7 or 8 or more responding each time thats a lot of what can be manic & speeding drivers (we have ALL done it)in todays mad traffic thats trouble waiting to happen,the public are not bothered until it is them which is very unlikely they are much more concearned about crime ,health,schools ect I know i am ,ask i people would pay for a instant turnout i.e w/t ,no chance the public in some areas get what they pay for im afraid to say & in the bigger scheme of things no one outside of the job is that interested

[Andy Cole]

Isn't there an argument that if the government gave an incentive to employers to employ retained firefighters and perhaps made it bit easier for Retained firefighters to afford housing then retainers would be encouraged to live and work a bit closer to the station thus reducing the turnout time and even possibly eleviating the need for blue/green/amber or pink lights??

[Mike Buckley]

Andy, you cannot be suggesting that the government actually spends some money to make life easier are you? What will you think of next? Reasonable rates of pay? contributions for brigades to buy the best kit? a rank system system that makes sense?

[Andy Cole]

Yeah your right, sorry I don't know what came over me it must of been drink induced or something it was christmas after all!!!

[essexretained]

I also work the RDS in Essex, if you are having problems getting to the station, invest in a bike, i also have seen LOTS of occurences of retained personnel responding to their pages driving like absolute nutters, its crazy. If you cant get to the station in "time", invest in a bike or something, I do and like one poster mentioned earlier, you really can duck in and out of the traffic. If you are at a 2 pump station most of the time there will be other crew members available for at least 1 machine to go out the doors

[rips]

essexretained, i think you should have a word with your fellow essex retained comrade, partimeinessex, as you obviously have your head squarely on your shoulders wit regards to attending the station.

[fireftrm]

Quite agree with rips here. I still maintain that it is not the government's job to sort out 'lights for RDS'. If there are local problems in achieving the required time to turnout then there need to be local solutions. It is up tot he FRS to sort that out and warning devices should not be on the list.

Out of interest how many times does the pump, at parttimeessex's station, not turnout in the required (set by EFRS) time, purely due to the inability of the crew to respond within time to the station? Having that answer - with some proper statistcs, not simply 'welll I know it has happened' type info, will allow us to better judge the options.

[parttimeinessex]

essexretained

You must have strong legs to cycle to the station and then get up that hill.

What im saying is the demands on the RDS have increased, you must be aware of that to and from the airport all the time, but the government seem to have ignored the extra pressure, what’s the point in having an all sing and dancing fire appliance if you can’t get it to were its needed. I still feel that warning other drivers that emergency personnel are on route, means everybody becomes safer. If you think it through, all officers have lights,” why” when do they get committed into a burning building or cut a casualty out of a car wreck, but they still turn up with lights and sirens showing! Double standards. Good luck to you if you can get you’re pumps on time every time, and the people of you’re fire ground should count them selves lucky. If you’re fully staffed great, but it is not so for all stations, with the fire authority looking into extended appliance turn out times to 7 minutes these people will compound the problem with even more traffic and delays. I know that I can’t get all Retained Firefighters to back me but im sure the majority will.

ALL
I keep hearing that its not the governments problem how can that be when fire station building application plans are turned down and the funding for new buildings have to be raised by PFI it cost Essex some tens of thousands of pounds to put in a pfi bid which could have been rejected. Not the governments fault  I as you to think again.

[Mike Buckley]

Yes officers have lights and they do not committed into the job but that is not their role. Their role is to take overall command of a job and bring their greater experience and training to bear.

The officers normally have other jobs to do and are often not in the immediate vicinity so if they travel at normal road speed it will be a long time before they appear. I know that not every job an officer gets mobilised to actually needs their presence, but it should be up to the descretion of the officer not to take charge and return to their normal duties if they are not needed.  Yes, I know there are officers who will go to every job they can, for any excuse and take charge but in my view this is not being a good officer.

[fireftrm]

Exactly Mike.

Now pt essex where is your evidence? Please detail exactly how many times your appliance fails to turn out within the 5 minutes, due solely to the slow response of RDS staff delayed by traffic. Delays due to being too far from the station, in the bath, car not starting, alerter not activating etc are not to be included. Then detail the total number of calls (so as to include those where the appliance did turn out within time), so that we cab gauge the true extent of the problem. Also please explain why the Essex plans were rejected and by whom, normally the planning process is local council run (s a district) and not central government (except after appeals to district - so they must already have rejected). The PFI is not the ONLY route, the FRA can build without this, but it offers a route to funding that may not be immediately available. The government vet these schemes for value. So again it would be the FRA that would have to demonstrate this, not the government. So I ask you again, why blame the government when this is a local issue, why not ask these questions and appoint he blame at the door of your FRA? It was really interesting that you originally noted the involvement of the local ADO in recruiting people who lived beyond the required travel time, to get enough people in. Well was that the government's fault? No it was his. Recruitment of RDS is a difficult issue, but the problems created (if they are actually demonstrated through the statistics you need to provide us with) are ones of the FRAs own making and they need to look at them.

By the way, as you seem so keen to promote the 'bad government' line and others have great ideas about what they should be doing, have any of you read their report into the RDS system? Might be a good idea if you did, then you may note their support for the duty system and that some of the ideas thrown up here are already there. You might also wish to examine just how much your FRA has done to implement the recommendations that are within their responsibility.

[Andy Cole]

Where can I find that report firetrm?

[fireftrm]

Was sent to all FRS and is on the DCLG website, it has also been largely reported upon on the various representative body websites.
http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1124378. Out of interest I didn't know that link, as I have a copy of the report on my shelves anyway, but found it by a relatively simple method of typing retained duty system report into Google! LOL

The Variable Response times section, p70, shows that the Government is well aware of the issues of responding to RDS stations and that they have made it a risk assessment based decision process for FRAs to determine how to deal with this. You will see that the Government suggest things like a delayed turnout, moving the appliance nearer to where the crew reside, different types of appliance (maybe crew numbers differing from standard 1 pump station) and dual availability (serve on differings tations at differing times). Other recommendations include nucleus staffing, part time contracts etc. So the issue has been looked at and the Government have made their recommendations, the FRAs need to respond by doing something.

[Andy Cole]

It does lie largely with the FRA to sort this problem out, if indeed it is a problem, I acn only speak for my own station where (despite not having any actual figures) we have nearly always been able to turn out with a full crew well within the given time, I have to say most of our FF's turnout on push bike or running and even on one occasion horseback!!

I do think that inorder for a retained station to be sustainable it has to have people who both live and work near it serving it and this is where I think the government could help, they could offer an incentive to an employer to make it a bit more worthwhile for them to employ Retainers and they could perhaps either offer cheaper housing for FF's or better mortgage rates??

I have to add the comments above are made without me doing any research and I'm quite sure someone will put me right on them but it is just an idea?

[fireftrm]

Andy - read the report!