Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor, I am grateful to Peter Jones for taking the trouble to respond to my paper (Woollard, 2010).

Mr Jones’ thoughtful reply adds further information that highlights the weaknesses in the ill thought-out proposal from the Chief Fire Officers Association. We will, however, have to differ with respect to my criticisms of the Fire Brigades Union’s refusal to support co-responder schemes. I fully accept that for many of the ambulance service calls co-responders attend, the patients have non-critical problems. However, this is also true of fire calls, and to extend the similarity occasionally, the situation is time-critical and the skills of the co-responders do make a life-or-death difference.

Despite the evident and major failings in their strategy to absorb England’s ambulance services, the Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA) are still pushing their proposal for adoption, as evidenced by its inclusion in their strategy document Fire Futures. Role of the Fire and Rescue Service (Delivery Models) Report. This echoes the implication that the amalgamation of ambulance and fire services would result in improved ambulance response times, but offers absolutely no evidence to support this argument. Further, this report makes it quite clear that the sole motivation for its proposals is to offset the 30% cut in funding that fire and rescue services (FRS) face in the next four years.