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Emergency calls

Theme 6

Emergency calls

Last updated: 14 February 2022

Recommendation

33.15a

That the London Fire Brigade’s policies be amended to draw a clearer distinction between callers seeking advice and callers who believe they are trapped and need rescuing.

Responsible for completion:

  • London Fire Brigade

Progress

Status

Complete

London Fire Brigade has reported that this recommendation has been completed. 

The London Fire Brigade has produced guidance on drawing a clearer distinction between callers seeking advice and callers who believe they are trapped and need rescuing, within Appendix 1 of Policy Number 790 (Fire Survival Guidance), published on 31 March 2021, following a Brigade wide training programme.

Recommendation

33.15b

That the London Fire Brigade provide regular and more effective refresher training to control room operators at all levels, including supervisors.

Responsible for completion:

  • London Fire Brigade

Progress

Status

Complete

London Fire Brigade has reported that this recommendation has been completed. 

The London Fire Brigade’s Control staff began their training on the revised Policy Number 790 (Fire Survival Guidance) in December 2020, with maintenance of competency requirements for staff set out within the Control element of the Brigade’s ‘Development and Maintenance of Operational Professionalism’ (DaMOP) framework, implemented in July 2020.

Recommendation

33.15c

That all fire and rescue services develop policies for handling a large number of fire survival guidance calls simultaneously.

Progress date:

November 2023

Responsible for completion:

  • Fire and Rescue Services

Progress

Status for fire and rescue services

In progress

Status for London Fire Brigade

Complete

National Operational Guidance for Fire Survival Guidance calls was published in July 2021.

The Government and the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) collaborated to produce technological solutions to allow fire control rooms to share information about risk critical information, including fire survival guidance calls, simultaneously. All services now have access to this system.

In October 2023, the NFCC surveyed all fire and rescue services (with the exception of the LFB) in England about their progress against recommendation 33.15c:

95% of services (41 services) reported they have completed this recommendation through reviewing training and policy and completing the necessary actions to manage multiple fire survival guidance calls. This represents a 2% increase from the previous NFCC survey completed in March 2023.

The remaining 5% (two services) have reviewed and updated their policies. Furthermore, training has been completed but still requires assessment before this recommendation can be marked as complete.  

 

 

 

The LFB has reported that recommendation 33.15c has been completed.

The training for the revised Policy Number 790 (Fire Survival Guidance) and the Broadcast National Talk Group has been completed. Policy Number 790 was published on the 31st March 2021 and the Broadcast National Talk Group went live in February 2021.

The Brigade’s Fire Survival Guidance (FSG) Policy has been shared as national learning and support a new project to establish National Operational Guidance (including FSG) for Control rooms. This guidance also includes the use of a National Talk Group for sharing risk critical information

Recommendation

33.15d

That electronic systems be developed to record fire survival guidance information in the control room and display it simultaneously at the bridgehead and in any command units

Progress date:

November 2023

Responsible for completion:

  • Fire and Rescue Services

Progress

Status for fire and rescue services

In progress

Status for London Fire Brigade

Complete

In October 2023, the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) surveyed all fire and rescue services (with the exception of the LFB) in England about their progress against recommendation 33.15d:

95% of services (41 services) have taken actions that allow information to be effectively captured and shared.

5% (two services) have completed the required actions but have not yet completely trained or assessed staff.

This represents a 9% increase from the previous NFCC survey completed in March 2023.

The LFB’s ‘sector leading’ technical initiative has been a matter of interest for many services who are considering how this could be incorporated into their own local arrangements.

 

 

The LFB has developed a technological solution which enables information from Fire Survival Guidance (FSG) calls to be displayed simultaneously at the incident and in Control. The introduction of the application was previously delayed due to technical issues which have now been resolved.

The Brigade consider this recommendation complete with the FSG application having gone live in March 2022.

Recommendation

33.15e

That policies be developed for managing a transition from “stay put” to “get out”.

Progress date:

November 2023

Responsible for completion:

  • Fire and Rescue Services

Progress

Status for fire and rescue services

In progress

Status for London Fire Brigade

Complete

In November 2023, the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) surveyed all fire and rescue services (with the exception of the LFB) in England about their progress against recommendation 33.15e:

95% of services (41 services) have reported that they had completed this recommendation including training and assessing staff. This represents a 2% increase from the previous NFCC survey completed in October 2023.

5% of services (two services) have not made the necessary changes to action this recommendation.

Services will continue to update their policies as research being carried out by Government and revised National Operational Guidance become available.

 

 

The London Fire Brigade (LFB) has reported that recommendation 33.15e has been completed.

The guidance for managing the transition from ‘stay put’ to ‘get out’ is provided in the revised Policy Number 790 (Fire Survival Guidance) and the new Evacuation and Rescue policies, both of which were published in March 2021. All operational and Control staff have completed mandatory training on both policies.

Recommendation

33.15f

That control room staff receive training directed specifically to handling such a change of advice and conveying it effectively to callers.

Progress date:

November 2023

Responsible for completion:

  • Fire and Rescue Services

Progress

Status for fire and rescue services

In progress

Status for London Fire Brigade

Complete

In October 2023, the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) surveyed all fire and rescue services (with the exception of the LFB) in England about their progress against the recommendations. In relation to 33.15f (which is linked to recommendation 33.15e):

95% of services (41 services) said they have completed this recommendation

2% of services (one service) has made the necessary changes but are still training their staff

2% of services (one service) aligns to guidance but have not reviewed policies.

 

 

London Fire Brigade (LFB) has reported that recommendation 33.15f has been completed as training for all Control staff has been completed and the learning embedded by participation in a series of high-rise firefighting exercises.

Recommendation

33.16

That steps be taken to investigate methods by which assisting control rooms can obtain access to the information available to the host control room.

Progress date:

November 2023

Responsible for completion:

  • Fire and Rescue Services

Progress

Status for fire and rescue services

In progress

Status for London Fire Brigade

Complete

The Government is working in partnership with the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) to implement infrastructure and strategic solutions for control rooms to improve the sharing of risk critical information between fire control rooms, and in the longer term, between fire and police/ambulance control rooms. This will allow the transfer of information between control rooms to be electronic instead of a control room operator having to manually contact the other service by telephone. The system is called “Multi Agency Information Transfer” (MAIT) and will allow information to be transferred between control rooms much quicker. This project is progressing well, and a supplier has been identified and a contract has now been awarded. The Supplier is currently working with the Home Office on the MAIT implementation. The Home Office has also been working closely with the National Fire Chiefs Council to implement MAIT across all English Fire Control Rooms. Three early adopters have been identified, two of which are now connected to MAIT with the third to be connected shortly. It is hoped that the rest of the control rooms will be onboarded by the end of the year and then MAIT will be fully operational across all English Fire and Rescue Services. 

New talk groups have been introduced to allow fire services to share information live between fire control rooms to ensure the information provided by anyone handling a call, wherever in the country the call may be received, reflects the current state of the fire. All FRSs have now embedded these talk groups in their call rooms.

There are two Airwave Talkgroups (radio channels), a “Fire Broadcast Talkgroup” and a “JESIP (Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles) Multi Agency Talkgroup” to improve the sharing of information between fire, police and ambulance. 

The Broadcast Talkgroup went live in England and Scotland in October 2020 and in Wales in December 2020. This means that if a fire and rescue service becomes overwhelmed with emergency calls, the affected service can now make an announcement on their control room Airwave Radio, and it will be received in every control room across the county simultaneously. The system has gone through extensive testing with successful results and is now in operational use in England Scotland and Wales under “Business as Usual”. The JESIP Talk group is now live in all Fire Control Rooms and the NFCC has released guidance to support its use.

In conjunction with the NFCC, the Government has provided funding for two Fire Control Managers to be seconded to assist with development of the National Operational Guidance for Fire Control staff. This included updating the current Fire Survival Guidance and training.

Survival Guidance for all incident types, emergency call management people at risk and Fire Control Command guidance have now been published. Fire and rescue services are now able to integrate this guidance into their own policies and procedures.

Guidance for fire control staff for handling multiple emergency calls and multiple emergency incidents has been published recently.

In efforts to address this recommendation, all 43 fire and rescue services have embedded the policies and training to support fire control room personnel in the use of the Airwave Talk Groups. 

The Home Office and NFCC have worked with BT to establish a more robust way of dealing with Fire Control Rooms becoming overwhelmed with emergency calls resulting from large or protracted incidents. 

A procedure known as “Operation Willow Beck” has been developed and tested and is currently operational in England, Scotland, and Wales on a six-month pilot. This pilot has been extended to 12 months and is likely to be adopted to a BAU function in April 2023. 

This means that BT now has a predetermined redistribution plan of how to distribute overflow calls efficiently between other fire and rescue services during periods when a single control room has become overwhelmed with 999 calls due to a large, protracted incident or spate conditions.

The system was used several times in anger during the July/August 22 wildfires with successful outcomes.

In August 2022, the NFCC surveyed all fire and rescue services (with the exception of the LFB) in England about their progress against recommendation 33.16. 

For this recommendation, 100% of services (43 services) have, in relation to the Airwave Talk Groups, embedded technical changes to the way information is shared between fire control rooms and between fire, police and ambulance services. This will ensure that accurate and timely information will be available to any service that handles a call for a major incident not in their area, based on the decisions being made in real time on the incident ground. This is currently in use by all fire and rescue services. 

The full completion of this recommendation is dependent on the rollout of MAIT.  This should be achieved  when all English FRSs go live with MAIT and it is estimated this will be by the Autumn of 2024. 

 

 

With the establishment of the Broadcast Talkgroup, the NFCC has provided guidance on the Talkgroup.

The LFB has reported that recommendation 33.16 has been completed as all Control officers have received training on the Talkgroup’s protocol. It is further reported that the Brigade’s Vision mobilising system is Multi Agency Incident Transfer (MAIT) enabled in preparation for the implementation of MAIT when it is rolled out nationally.

 

Recommendation

33.17

That the London Ambulance Service and Metropolitan Police Service review their protocols and policies to ensure that their operators can identify fire survival guidance calls (as defined by the London Fire Brigade) and pass them to the London Fire Brigade as soon as possible.

Responsible for completion:

  • London Ambulance Service and Metropolitan Police

Progress

Status

Complete

London Fire Brigade has informed us that its revised Policy Note 790 ‘Fire Survival Guidance’, published on 31 March 2021, has been shared with the Metropolitan Police Service and the London Ambulance Service, together with a briefing note to support an increased understanding of the policy revisions.

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and London Ambulance Service (LAS) have both reported to the Mayor of London that they have reviewed protocols on Fire Survival Guidance calls to ensure these are passed to the London Fire Brigade. Therefore, this recommendation is considered to be completed.