New London Fire Brigade initiative to charge for unwanted alarms

[kurnal]

Here we go again

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-22471556

The management of the publicly funded London Fire Brigade want to make money by charging the public for use of their services.. And the biggest target? The publicly funded NHS. So Joe Public will end up digging into his pocket 4 times over.

1- to pay for the fire serviice.
2- to pay for the NHS
3- to pay the fire service for attending calls to the NHS premises
4- to pay the costs of the fire service collecting this money.

Why oh why dont these managers of public funded bodies just get on with managing their organisation efficiently and communicate  and co-operate with each other? Its like the funding of social care for elderly people in which both the NHS and Social Services have set up huge admin structures to claim money back for social care from each other. Irrespective which organisation pays its the taxpayers money they are spending after all. 

[Paul2886]

Hi kurnal,
Extracted from the link you gave:
Care homes and sheltered housing would not be included in the proposals as they are categorised as domestic premises

I wish The Kent Fire Authority viewed the above premises the same. Although I agree with your comments at least London are not ignoring calls in situations where no fire has been confirmed in care homes, and where elderly vulnerable people are often spending the final days of their lives.

[colin todd]

While not the greatest admirer of the greatest fire brigade in the whole of London, I agree with Pauley. The FRSs that fail to respond to alarms are setting themselves up for a big fall. Have I mentioned before that this only occurs in certain areas of England.

With regard to charging the NHS, I always go privately, but they will need to be able to prove that the false alarms are persistent (though not hard in the case of a large general hospital) AND that the system was misinstalled. Firefghters would of course know all about the technicalities of fire alarm design, especially in London, where they will express their opinion on everything from nuclear physics to why the universe is expanding.

[Graeme]

Colin

I find that the part time firefighters are the experts on all things fire alarms.

The all solving taking a head down and blowing into it cures all known unwanted alarms and low analogue faults.

And the answer to all unknown activations....a spider!!

[colin todd]

Graeme, While that may be so, my good chums in the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service will not be charging for false alarms, nor sitting on their situpons when asked to attend a call to a fire alarm actuating. Must make the Salmon proud to be an SNP.