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Response to Sir Ken Knight's Flooding Review
The Flooding Review published in March entitled “Facing the Challenge” (written by Sir Ken Knight, Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser to the government) has made reference to some of the communication issues that arose from the summer floods of 2007, and we outline some of the main ones below.
Referring to the FiReControl project – a national project that will enhance resilience, including the capacity for call handling with nine purpose built centers equipped with modern technology – the report stated, “Firefighters mobilised to incidents will have mobile data terminals on their vehicles. These will be updated, giving them a wide of information in a standard format including mapping and incident data.”
The volume of calls experienced during the flooding lead to difficulties for the emergency services and the call centres. The report outlines proposals from BT to “mitigate the effects of the current restrictions in Fire and Rescue Services (FRS) capacity to assist controls in coping with the volume of calls in spate conditions.” By using phrase filtering the operator could ask the caller whether the emergency was flood related – which would probably be already known to the FRS – or if it was a separate fire incident. Information like this would help prioritise calls more effectively.
The report also highlighted the disparity in technology available to FRS control rooms in England. It pointed to the fact mobile data capability is available in some form in 27 out of the 46 FRAs, and two use if for dynamic mobilising in the same way envisaged by the new Regional Control Centres (RCC). A further nine have the capacity to mobilise using Mobile Data Terminals but not in the same way. Only 18 of the 46 control rooms have caller identification, and only 10 can locate callers from mobile phones. There is no capability to share workload between existing controls when large incidents occur or during other busy periods. Lastly, there is no national capability to mobilise the nearest appropriate resource regardless of ownership.
Furthermore of these 46 existing control rooms no interoperability or resilience for one area suffering spate conditions is offered. The general lack of “flexible staffing models” placed massive pressure on the local fire control that had the sole ability to receive emergency calls and mobiles resources. This in turn caused a backlog of calls waiting in the 999 system. It is these issues the FiReControl project will address as part of its fire resilience programme that is being led by Communities and Local Governments.
However, the report did mention the positive effect the use of the 101 Non-Emergency Telephone Number being piloted in the area. The report stated, “in South Yorkshire, effective use was made of the 101 Non-Emergency Telephone Number being piloted in the area. In doing so the 101 Service provided a simple means for the public to access non-emergency services and provide information, co-ordination and response. The use of 101 in this way significantly relieved pressure on the 999 emergency call handling arrangements.”
To read the full report visit this website where it can be downloaded in PDF format.
