Firefighter Accidents And Irmps

Conference demands that the Executive Council undertake or commission an inquiry utilising all available accident investigation reports and relevant other evidence from cases to establish any possible link between the increases in firefighter deaths and serious injuries and the introduction of integrated risk management planning in Fire and Rescue Services. The inquiry should focus on ● Any recent change to the planned response times and initial PDA dictated by the IRMP prior to the serious accident\fatality. ● Any perceived difficulties on implementing safe systems of work due to insufficient resources. ● Any difficulties experienced in establishing incident command and control due to insufficient resources. ● To compare initial resources allocated with those demanded by the CAST planning scenarios to determine what effect adherence to CAST may have had on the difficulties that were experienced. IRMP has often led to a cut in fire service resources that clearly puts firefighters and the public at greater risk. If it is demonstrated that this has contributed to the unacceptable and rising number of deaths and serious injuries to firefighters this must be raised as a matter of urgency with individual fire and rescue authorities, the Health & Safety Executive, our employers and the CLG/Scottish Resilience, with a view to ensuring Chief Officers and fire authorities are held accountable and that adequate resources are provided in future in the initial PDA to ensure safe systems of work can be applied immediately on arrival. The restoration of minimum national standards of fire and rescue cover in all FRS should also be provided to consolidate this.