Dear Editor, Professor Malcolm Woollard does an excellent job of exposing the proposal from fire chiefs for the ill thought-out nonsense that it is.
In his article, Woollard quotes fire service attendance times of 5 minutes. I would like to point out that the fire services no longer have national attendance time standards at all as these were abolished by the previous government (against no opposition from fire chiefs).
I think I am right in saying that, although chief fire officers now have discretion to determine their own services’ response times, there are no 5 minute attendance times any longer.
In fact, almost without exception, where there have been new local standards determined, standards are worse now than they were before national standards were abolished.
Since around 2004, there are many fewer firefighters, many fewer fire stations and many fewer fire appliances available for emergency response.
Woollard can therefore add to his criticisms of fire chiefs, the charge of rank hypocrisy in that they are claiming to be able to run another emergency service to a more efficient standard, while they are presiding over a lamentable drop in standards of emergency response within the fire service itself.
On the matter of first responders, I have general reservations about their use. On the face of it, first responders in communities, particularly remote communities, appear to be an entirely positive asset. However, from what I have seen, the provision of first responders can, and often does, lead to a poorer overall emergency provision.
Too often, first responders are used as an excuse for the non-improvement, or even worsening, of emergency medical cover. An example of this is the case of first responders being used to replace out-of-hours services provided by GPs or practice nurses. Another example is the continued lack of emergency ambulance cover provided to an area, due to the fact that ambulance attendance time standards are met by the first responders; leaving the attendance times of ambulances unimproved or even extended as a direct consequence. What happens to the ‘golden hour’ then?
I would add that I believe that the criticism of the FBU’s stance on ambulance/first responder work is wrong. In my experience, the retained stations that carry out such duties for the local ambulance service do so in order to help the ambulance service to better attempt to meet its attendance times in rural areas. The vast majority of their calls are false alarms or non emergencies, often to the local doctors surgery, only to do nothing but await the ambulance.
Meanwhile, there have been concerns that the retained crews carrying out such duties have failed to maintain their fire service skills. This, combined with the points raised in the Professor’s article, are ample justification for the FBU’s stance.