NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED. Emergency Services Interoperability Speech. Keynote Speech for the JESIP National Interoperability Summit

Transcription

1 Emergency Services Interoperability Speech Keynote Speech for the JESIP National Interoperability Summit Introduction 21 November 2012, Stareton Hall, Stoneleigh Park, Coventry. Agenda slot: (35 minutes) Thank you for inviting me to this, the first National Summit on Interoperability. I am very pleased to be here at the launch of the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme and to have this opportunity to talk to you. Ministers regret that they cannot be here today. I would like to outline their views on this work, following discussions between Government and the police, fire and ambulance services, as well as the key challenges we want the programme to tackle. The emergency services deliver an excellent service to the public. Our responders are clearly amongst the best in the world. We recognise that police, fire and ambulance are not interchangeable and that they work together very successfully on day-to-day issues, as well as in most major incidents. But we also know that the emergency services face significant challenges in responding to certain types of scenario. This is particularly true in the initial stages of a complex and fast-moving situation, when the picture is confusing and there may be unseen dangers. For example when there is a chemical release, a suspected bomb, or a roving gunman. Or they may need to work together to save lives quickly within a difficult operating environment such as a confined space, or a flooded area. In complex and major incidents the best endeavours of the three services to work together may not be enough. The three services must be able to come together as quickly as possible to share information about what is going on, manage the risks and rescue any casualties. In the most challenging scenarios, when the emergency services work together, they save lives. Ministerial priority In the UK we have experienced attacks which show how important it is for the emergency services to work together. The Coroner s OSCT Prepare Page 1 of 7

2 Inquest into the 7/7 London Bombings was clear that no lives had been lost that could have been saved by those who responded. However the Coroner did make recommendations where she saw evidence that there was a risk of other deaths in the future. Her report identified several areas for improvement in joint working. So did ACC Simon Chesterman s Report following the Derrick Bird shootings in Cumbria. Similar learnings are even backed up by this year s Independent Panel Report into Hillsborough. The areas for improvement have consistently cropped up in detailed reviews and include, specifically: First, the ability of the services to communicate effectively at the scene; secondly, understanding between organisations of each others roles and responsibilities in responding to a major incident; and thirdly, the ability to work together in spite of the differing risk appetites of each organisation. We have also seen similar lessons from overseas, such as the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai and the attack by Breivik in Norway last year. Tactics evolve, and even quite unsophisticated weaponry can be devastating. It is vital for the emergency response to be immediate, robust and well joined-up in response to a range of national threats and hazards. This is why interoperability between the Police, Fire and Ambulance Services is high on the Ministerial agenda. Interoperability is an issue which is personally important to the Home Secretary - she is clear that the Government has a duty to the families of the victims of the 7/7 bombings, as well as a duty to the wider public, to ensure that we learn from the lessons identified in the Coroner s Inquest into the London bombings and from previous incidents. This is why Ministers asked the emergency services to set up a new programme of work designed to make further improvements to the joint response to emergencies. It is also why there has never been a better opportunity to crack this complex issue. OSCT Prepare Page 2 of 7

3 Scope and aim of programme The overall aim of the new Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme, known as JESIP, is: to ensure that the blue light services are trained and exercised to work together as effectively as possible in response to a major incident, including fast-moving terrorist scenarios, so that as many lives as possible can be saved. The programme will build upon the work done so far on the joint emergency response to specific risks, including a marauding terrorist firearms attack and incidents involving chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear substances (or CBRN, as you know). JESIP will encompass all types of major incident, including natural disasters, civil emergencies and terrorist attacks. This is because an effective response that saves lives will require joint working between the services at any of these incidents. By the end of the programme, interoperability between the police, fire and ambulance services will need to be embedded into business as usual and become an inherent part of each service s culture and values. Programme set-up To deliver this, the Home Office is funding a two-year programme of work, which includes a joint team to take this work forward. The team includes a Senior User from each of the three services. While sponsor Government departments have always supported their emergency services, the fact that there is no central department responsible for all of the emergency services has often been put forward as a barrier to achieving interoperability. With the JESIP programme the emergency services will also have clear and united support from across Government the Home Office, Cabinet Office, Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department of Health. Ministers from each of these departments now take part in a regular Ministerial Oversight Board focused solely on this issue. Ministers all agree the importance of this work. They want to understand where they can help JESIP. They have offered to review any area where red tape might slow or hinder progress. We have a real opportunity here. OSCT Prepare Page 3 of 7

4 I would encourage you to get in touch with the programme team, headed by Jo Byrne who is here today, to let us know about specific areas of red tape which may be getting in the way of joint working. Ministers have made an explicit offer to help you remove these barriers; it is an opportunity not to be missed. Challenges Ministers also recognise that there are a number of challenges to achieving interoperability, including the scale of the programme. JESIP will need to engage with over 100 services as well as other important stakeholders who are central to the programme s success. The Chief Fire Officer s Association, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives will need to persuade and influence their members to adopt changes. All this sits in the context of big political change in police and health and economic pressures on budgets. Perhaps the biggest challenge to embedding interoperability is the cultural change needed across the three services - changing attitudes and behaviours at both an individual and collective level. We strongly believe that interoperability comes down to individual behaviour knowing your fellow commanders and responders. These relationships are built through joint training and exercising. Of course interoperability needs to be supported by the right equipment and assets but at its heart it is about working together at the scene of an incident. This is a difficult task and will take time but we believe that there is a requirement for a well-understood set of joint operating principles that apply to all major incidents and risks and that this needs to be embedded through joint training and exercising. Training can help to overcome the cultural issues and differences between services and exercising allows the response to be tested and demonstrate that what is agreed on paper will work in practice. We believe these three areas of doctrine, training and exercising are key, based on our experience in running programmes looking at specific threats. The Home Office has a long standing programme of work to develop the UK s capability respond to a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear incident known as CBRN. More recently, the OSCT Prepare Page 4 of 7

5 Home Office has worked closely with the emergency services to develop a joint response to a marauding terrorist firearms attack. Ahead of the Olympics, and within 18 months, we developed and equipped joint teams across the country to work together to respond to this type of incident. Both programmes of work have focused on the development of a police, fire and ambulance joint response, improving joint working between these emergency responders to enable rapid decision making and treatment of casualties. While the JESIP programme will consider if there is a need for more niche capability, I should emphasise that it is mainly about the response by all first responders and commanders not just specialist teams. In the fast-moving, complex scenario, the first responders on scene can save lives. So JESIP will need to look at the learning from these specific threats, and consider where more general improvements can be made. Doctrine, training and exercising I ll give some examples. Our work on CBRN and firearms attacks has identified five key stages of the response where interoperability has needed to be improved. We think this offers a useful framework for considering the issues at each stage of the operation to any major incident. I ll briefly describe them one by one. Task one is the identification and declaration of an incident. This means ensuring information is shared so that the emergency services recognise as early as possible what they are dealing with. As an example, in a terrorist gun attack, an agreed codeword across all three services will ensure that an attack can quickly be identified and contingency plans initiated within the first critical or golden hour. Task two is mobilising the right resources to the right place to deal with the incident. The 7/7 inquest found the confusion around the declaration of a major incident led to delays sending enough resources. A combination of computer and human error lead to emergency responders being sent to the wrong location and confusion remained around the prioritisation of resources being mobilised to the locations with the greatest need. OSCT Prepare Page 5 of 7

6 Task three is conducting a joint risk assessment of the scene to determine how it will be managed. One of the major achievements of the programme dealing with the response to a gun attack has been to gain agreement that all three services would use the same Joint Dynamic Risk Assessment at the scene of an incident. We are now looking to roll this out as part of the CBRN Initial Operational Response Programme. Task four is dealing with casualties in a difficult operating environment. The marauding terrorist firearms attack programme has implemented specialist joint teams of Fire and Ambulance staff trained in new treat and leave tactics. CBRN is developing specialist tactics and doctrine for how to operate in a CBRN contaminated environment. Task five is about managing other risks to responders. Within the marauding terrorist firearms attack programme this means putting processes in place to count specialist responders in and out of higher-risk areas, and agreeing at-scene withdrawal plans. CBRN has created joint tactics with the military to remove the risk from potential CBRN devices, supported by annual training and exercising with the Police. Enablers Of course interoperability needs to be supported by the right equipment and assets but at its heart it is about working together at the scene of an incident. JESIP should seek to influence future developments in equipment and technology but it is important that it should address the more fundamental building blocks of interoperability. The ability to quickly share information and intelligence is central to an effective response - ongoing communication within and between the emergency services will support commanders, who need to work together to make decisions and take urgent action - but even the best communication system in the world will fail if a common language is not used or is hindered by jargon. We learnt this from 7/7 where complex acronyms and unnecessary jargon confused communication between the services. Conclusion OSCT Prepare Page 6 of 7

7 Today I have set out Government s view of the challenges faced by the three emergency services in achieving greater interoperability to improve the joint response to complex and fast-moving emergencies. I hope they are already familiar to you. Although Ministers have a view on what can and should be done to make these improvements, they believe that the answers to these challenges lie within the services themselves. Indeed, we know that there are some very good examples of interoperability in some local areas. The key to success will be to build on these to ensure interoperability in and across all locations. Having set out one way in which we have begun to tackle the challenge of interoperability I would like to challenge you to consider and reflect upon your own ideas and share these with your JESIP colleagues. I hope I ve made it clear today that you have the full support of Government in making improvements to interoperability between the Police, Fire and Ambulance services. There has never been a better opportunity for change. END OSCT Prepare Page 7 of 7