The LFB has reported that this recommendation has been completed. 

The LFB 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.

The LFB has reported that this recommendation has been completed. 

The LFB’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.

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

New technological solutions 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. 

The NFCC has surveyed all fire and rescue services (with the exception of the LFB) in England about their progress against recommendation 33.15c.

All services have reported that they have completed this recommendation through reviewing training and policy and completing the necessary actions to manage multiple fire survival guidance calls.

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 31 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.

The National Fire Chiefs Council surveyed all fire and rescue services (with the exception of the LFB) in England about their progress against recommendation 33.15d.

All 43 services have taken actions that allow information to be effectively captured and shared.

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.

The National Fire Chiefs Council surveyed all fire and rescue services (with the exception of the LFB) in England about their progress against recommendation 33.15e. All services have completed the necessary action.

The 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.

The National Fire Chiefs Council 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), all 43 services have completed this action.

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.

The previous Government worked 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 allows 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 Incident Transfer” (MAIT) and allows information to be transferred between control rooms much more quickly. This project is progressing well, and the system is now connected to 18 fire control rooms serving 26 FRSs and continues to be rolled out across England. It is anticipated that a further 10 control rooms will be connected by the end of March 2025. The final 6 will be connected in slower time due to local integration work that is required on control room systems to make them MAIT compatible.

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 control 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 country 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.

Funding for two Fire Control Managers to be seconded to assist with development of the National Operational Guidance for Fire Control staff has been provided. 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.

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 during the July/August 2022 wildfires with successful outcomes.

In relation to the Airwave Talk Groups, all 43 services have embedded technical changes to the way information is shared between fire control rooms and between fire, police and ambulance services. This ensures 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. 

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.  London Fire Brigade are also in the process of implementing Multi Agency Incident Transfer (MAIT) as part of the national rollout and it is hoped they should be live with the rest of England by the end of 2024.

The LFB has informed us that its revised Policy Note 790 ‘Fire Survival Guidance’, published in 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 LFB. This recommendation is therefore considered to be complete.