The HSE are currently looking at all Fire Services to establish a national framwework and benchmark how services are doing. As part of this they wanted to visit a number of services around the country to establish how things are. HFRS volunteered to be the first.
Positive Health and Safety cultures with a reactionary system
The HSE concluded that HFRS had a positive Health and Safety culture wth a reactionary system which it commended the service for. It mentioned:
- Good working relationships with RB's
- Recognised SM station visits as a positive thing
- Good development of core skills and reacting to required changes
- Good implementation of RDS training officers although recognised that the service is one short (and currently no budget exists to fill this post.
- Good use of fire training premises and recognised soon to be built firehouse.
- Good sharing of information both service wide, regionally and nationally.
- Good incident audit process.
Could do better
Although it was generally great feedback there were some areas which will need adressing:
- Policies not quite keeping up with the rapid changes experienced
- There should be an over arching document which draws together all HSE components of a policy in the service such as for incidents, training etc.
- Because change is so rapid development groups and deliverables are confsing.
- Training needs for RDS on specials needs to be addressed as there is not sufficient time in a drill night to cover all training requirements .(Do note: amember of SMT has assured me this will be adressed with additional training NOT removal of specials).
- BA Skilss : start up procedures need clarifying and addressing.
- There is currently no ongoing assessment of trainers and instructors.
- A mechanism needs to be introduced to prioritise HSE issues
We congratulate HFRS on this result and look forward to the identified issues being addressed for RDS crews. |
