Cornwall Fire & Rescue Service Newsdesk

at 10/11/2003 14:00

Cornwall County Fire Brigade launched its plans for modernisation at 2pm on Monday the 10th November 2003 at Truro Fire Station.

The Government requires all UK Fire Authorities to undertake a fundamental review of how they provide their services. This is not a static process, with all authorities required to carry out this review on an annual basis. Cornwall’s Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP) is the product of our first review.

“This study allows us to examine the emergencies we attend, analyse the risks to the community and ensure that we have the right resources, in the right place, at the right time”
said Chief Fire Officer Mick Howell

He cont: “We are looking at identifying existing risks, evaluating the effectiveness of current preventative and response arrangements, identifying opportunities for improvement, determining resource requirements to meet policies and standards and consulting with our stakeholders which includes the general public, businesses and the media”

The IRMP process is one which will evolve over a number of years, but in this first plan we have identified a number of initiatives which we wish to pursue during 2004/2005.
These proposed initiatives are:

• Partnership working – we will continue to develop a number of partnerships which are in place with organisations who help us to enhance the service we provide
• Terrorism – we will train our staff to deal with the effects of terrorist attacks and continue to work towards the national agenda of ensuring resilience from terrorism
• Home Fire Safety Checks – we will expand our current scheme, of visiting vulnerable people in their homes to assess their potential fire risks, throughout the whole County
• Working with Young People – We will continue to enhance schemes aimed at young people, including fire cadets, firesetter counselling, education in schools and courses for young people at risk of offending, and secure funding where appropriate
• Calls to Automatic Fire Alarms – We intend to introduce a risk-based approach to automatic fire alarm systems and review our response to this type of call to ensure the appropriate level of attendance is sent
• Co-Responders – We currently provide a first response in medical care in St Keverne, Mullion and Helston. We will assess the effectiveness of this scheme and work with Westcountry Ambulance to expand the scheme where appropriate
• Road Traffic Accidents – On average we attend over 500 road traffic accidents a year. More people die as a result of R TA’s then they do from fire. We will work with other agencies with the aim of reducing the number of road traffic accidents
• Working with other Fire Brigades – We will continue to work closely with other fire services and carry out joint reviews into common fire service issues
• Training – We will continue to provide training to businesses and members of the public and seek to obtain an income which may be used to fund fire and accident prevention
• Incident Information and Statistics – We hope to make a number of improvements to our systems to ensure that the information we collect is accurate and easy to interpret. This will ensure that recommendations made as a result of future IRMP’s can be fully justified with appropriate and accurate statistical evidence
• Retained Firefighters – The Fire Authority have appointed a review panel to look at the difficulties we are experiencing recruiting and retaining retained (part-time) firefighters

Mrs J. Ferrett, Executive Member Public Protection said: “Cornwall County Fire Brigade wants to hear your views before taking any firm decisions to go ahead. We hope that everyone will take a few moments to complete the questionnaire and return it to us before 10th December 2003. Your comments count so please respond.”

The completed Integrated Risk Management Plan and related questionnaire can be viewed at your local library or on our website: www.cornwall.gov.uk/fire.
Alternatively, if you would like us to send you a paper copy of the full document and questionnaire, please email your request to enquiries@fire.cornwall.gov.uk or write to:
Cornwall County Fire Brigade
FREEPOST (SWB 999)
Truro
Cornwall
TR1 3ZZ