East Midlands Fire and Rescue Control Centre

East Midlands Fire and Rescue Control Centre

Introduction When the East Midlands Fire and Rescue Control Centre fully opens in 2010, it will be one of the first in the country to offer a new and critical resilience in fire and rescue emergency services The Control Centre holds the key to fire and rescue service emergency operations of the future as we will be able to work together more effectively in times of national emergency, providing immediate support to each other and a resilience that will help to protect the whole country. The skills of control room operators currently working in five individual services across the region will be brought together under one roof. This will not only enhance the 999 response provided to their local communities but, equally importantly, it will make the fire and rescue service provision more resilient than ever before. Councillor Darrell Pulk Chair, East Midlands Fire and Rescue Control Centre Ltd The East Midlands is one of the first of nine Regional Control Centres being established across the country, and we are pleased to be at the forefront of the implementation of this Government initiative. Our service will be fully operational in the summer of 2010, replacing the five existing control rooms currently operating in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire. Control staff working from this brand new building will form a vital link between the public, firefighters and an array of high-tech equipment, helping to streamline our emergency response and serve our communities better.

Background to the FiReControl project The national FiReControl project to integrate the country s fire and rescue emergency control centres is being led by the department of Communities and Local Government Fire Resilience Programme. Its aim is to improve the resilience of England s fire and rescue services, and to enhance their ability to deal with major incidents, such as terrorist threats and widespread flooding, similar to the emergencies we have seen in recent years. The 46 individual control rooms currently operating across the country usually one per county will be consolidated into nine regional centres. The East Midlands Regional Control Centre (RCC) will look after the needs of 4.2 million local people on a daily basis, managing 999 calls to fires, road accidents and other rescue situations in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire. This is the base from where the control room operators will liaise with firefighters on the ground, mobilising all the resources needed to manage an incident. The staff will also be capable of scaling-up their operations to provide support wherever it is needed across the country. All nine centres in England will have the same equipment, they will work to the same procedures, they will have access to the same information and their systems will be networked, giving them a new and critical resilience. This means that a control room operator in the East Midlands could mobilise resources to an incident in Cornwall, if necessary. And this means they can provide essential back-up to each other if systems are overloaded at another regional control centre, or additional resources are needed to co-ordinate the response to a national disaster. The East Midlands centre is located at Castle Donington in Leicestershire. The building was completed in summer 2007 and it is currently being equipped and subjected to extensive and rigorous testing. The existing control room at Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service will be the first to transfer its calls to the RCC. This is due to take place towards the end of 2009 and will be followed at intervals by the control room functions from Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire. This migration should be complete by summer 2010. The remaining eight national RCCs should all be fully operational before the Olympic Games are held in London, in 2012.

The role of the RCC Staff at the Regional Control Centre will be responsible for: Handling and prioritising fire and rescue service 999 calls throughout the East Midlands. Mobilising the nearest available appropriate vehicles, equipment and officers to the incident. Maintaining contact with fire crews, recording regular progress reports on incidents and escalating the response, if required. Updating information about risks, conditions, changing situations etc. Reporting on performance and quality improvements. Providing support to other RCCs, when required. Mobilising crews and equipment across fire and rescue service borders, if required. Mobilising specialist equipment available as a national resource. The main hub of the building is the control room a double-height space equipped with 35 control operator positions, which can be expanded to cope with particularly busy or extraordinary situations. The focal point of the room is a large wall-mounted display screen which can show a wide range of information such as maps, the location of appliances and images from the scene of an incident.

The benefits of a regional service Staff in the existing control rooms do an excellent job, but each control room is set up slightly differently, with variations in technology and the way that they work. They were not designed to deal with major regional or national incidents in a coordinated way. The nine regional control centres, however, will take a new and more sophisticated approach, working with the same equipment, to the same procedures, which means they can work seamlessly together when the situation dictates. They will use the best technology currently available to handle emergency calls, mobilise the nearest appropriate fire appliance and provide relevant information to the firefighters in their cab. The information at their fingertips should mean that it doesn t matter whether the incident is five miles, or 300 miles away. The new RCCs will offer a wide variety of benefits for the future: Any RCC can handle calls for anywhere in the country, if necessary, providing immediate extra support during particularly busy times, a major incident or in the event of system failure. Common technology in all nine centres enables better responses, especially when busy. The control room receiving the call will be a fully modern facility, supported by the best technology and database information available. For example: º The location of a member of the public calling for assistance will automatically be identified, helping to mobilise the response more quickly. º º Satellite positioning equipment will tell the control centre operators which fire appliance(s), with the correct equipment on board, can reach the scene most quickly. The control centre operators will mobilise the nearest available appliance(s) using data transmission, which will ensure the accuracy of messages being relayed. Firefighters mobilised to the incident will have on-board computers in their cabs which will be constantly updated, providing a range of information in a standard format, including: º A map showing the quickest route to the incident, taking into account the latest information on traffic conditions, road closures etc, using satellite navigation technology. º Details of known risks and hazards in the building and/or the locality. º Floor plans and access details, where appropriate. º The location of the nearest hydrants and water supplies. º Relevant standard procedures for managing the type of incident concerned, eg how to deal with particular types of chemical or how to carry out a rescue from a specific make of car. All emergency services will have effective radio communication links with each other. Fire and rescue services will be able to more accurately co-ordinate their responses to very large incidents.

A skilled team behind the scenes Control room operators receiving 999 calls need a combination of special personal qualities and professional skills to help the fire and rescue service to respond quickly, precisely and effectively in an emergency. This already happens within each of our county fire and rescue services, and the control room staff are valued extremely highly. We are currently consulting with the unions on how we can match staff transferring from the five existing fire and rescue services to comparable roles within the RCC. Staff have been kept informed of developments at the RCC throughout the project through regular newsletters, staff seminars and visits to the building. Formal consultation with their representative bodies on appropriate issues is on-going. An initial team of staff needs to be trained in the new systems and ready to take the first calls on behalf of Derbyshire when its service transfers in autumn 2009. Each of the five fire and rescue services has been asked to release members of its control room team to form this initial staffing pool to cover the transition period. If there are any vacancies remaining after the process of matching transferring staff to RCC roles has been exhausted, these will be advertised openly through the local media. The RCC will also employ a small team of management information and gazetteer specialists. They are responsible for providing the valuable information which the control room operators and the firefighters use to help them respond to incidents in the most efficient way. They will update maps with information such as road closures, changes in speed limits, postcodes, addresses and water hydrant locations. They also analyse statistics relating to performance and provide reports to help managers to monitor their achievements against local and national targets and plan the development of the business. More staff will then gradually transfer as the different county services migrate across. The precise number of posts required plus the finer details of the processes to support staff transferring to the RCC, such as shift patterns and policies ensuring terms and conditions of employment are protected in compliance with TUPE legislation are still under discussion and will be subject to consultation involving staff and their unions.

Managing the Regional Control Centre A regional project board was established by the East Midlands Regional Management Board in 2004 to oversee the delivery of the East Midlands project. A senior officer from each of the five fire and rescue services sits on the project board, alongside a project manager, specialist advisors and representatives of the trade unions. In November 2006, the five fire and rescue authorities (FRAs) established a local authority controlled company - East Midlands Fire and Rescue Control Centre Ltd - to operate the RCC and agree how it should be run. This was the first RCC company to be set up in the country. The company is chaired by Councillor Darrell Pulk (Chair of Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Authority) and each FRA is represented by two of its elected members. The first members of staff have also been appointed to the RCC. Paul St Clair is RCC Director, and his previous experience in the regional control room of East Midlands Ambulance Service gives him an excellent insight into how this type of service should be managed. He has been able to play a leading role in influencing the project s development nationally, whilst driving forward the progress at the East Midlands centre. Paul has since been joined by Lynn Holloway as Service Support Manager and Simon Tunnicliffe as Senior Operations Manager. They are helping to develop systems and processes, and to establish the team that will run the centre when it opens in autumn 2009.

Countdown to go live Fire Minister Parmjit Dhanda visited the RCC in July 2007 to officially hand the lease of the building over to East Midlands Fire and Rescue Control Centre Ltd. Pictured are Richard How, FiReControl Project Director for Communities and Local Government, Parmjit Dhanda, Dave Webb, Regional Project Director and Paul St Clair, Regional Control Centre Director. Key milestones for the project until the transfer is complete, are: 2008 July: Begin migrating data from the five fire and rescue service systems to the new system at the RCC. December: Start equipping the RCC Control Room. 2009 February/March: Early system testing begins. May: First tests of the RCC system begin. July/August: Staff begin training at the RCC. 2010 January: Leicestershire FRS control room function transfers to the RCC. March: Nottinghamshire FRS control room function transfers to the RCC. May: Lincolnshire FRS control room function transfers to the RCC. July: Northamptonshire FRS control room function transfers to the RCC. October: Derbyshire becomes the first fire and rescue service control room function to operate from the RCC.

Important Facts The East Midlands Region The East Midlands region encompasses the following fire and rescue services for: Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Northamptonshire City of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Derby and Derbyshire Lincolnshire The Site The East Midlands RCC is located in Willow Farm Business Park, Castle Donington, DE74 2UD. The Business Park comprises approximately 30 acres of land. It is accessible from three of the main cities in the region - Nottingham, Leicester and Derby - and is close to East Midlands Airport. The map below shows the RCC for East Midlands in Access Rail The closest train station is Long Eaton, and the building is close to Derby and Leicester stations. Bus Buses pass the site on a regular basis, providing direct links to both Nottingham and Derby. Further bus service improvements to the area are being made. Airport East Midlands Airport is located two miles to the south of the RCC, offering frequent flights to a number of European destinations. Car The RCC is located close to the motorway network in the centre of the country. The scheme is accessed from the A50 (T) which provides a dual-carriageway link between junctions 24/24A of the M1 and the M6 motorway to the west. There are 85 parking spaces to accommodate shift changeovers. The map also shows the locations of other RCCs. Cambridge Taunton Durham Wakefield Fareham Warrington London (TBC) Wolverhampton If you would like further information about the East Midlands Regional Control Centre, please contact us by: Tel: 01332 815369 Email: emrccenquiries@lfrs.org