Unit 15: responding to emergency service incidents
The 999 system
The 999 system was first introduced in London on 30th June 1937 on the occurrence of a fire on the 10th November 1935 in a house on Wimpole Street in which five women were killed.
The 999 number is the official emergency contact number for the key services which the public can gain contact with 24 hours a day for urgent assistance. By using this number the caller could call the Police, Fire & Rescue, Ambulance, Coast guard, Mountain Rescue and Cave rescue.
The process of which the caller will go through when using the 999 system.
Pass criteria
Incident Grading (P1)
Incident grading is the process how each emergency service responds, by the action of priority.
Police
The police have four categories they use to prioritise the incidents that occur
Grade 1 (Emergency Response)
An example of an emergency response would be any situation where there is a risk to a person's life or, a person who has had threatening behaviour or in progress of this behaviour occurring. Also any form of crime that is being committed or any serious injury to any person.
Grade 2 (Priority Response)
A grade 2 response classifies incidents that can range from a road traffic collision, which involves serious injury of the people involved and obstruction of access. Another grade 2 response is where a suspect has been arrested or detained and there is no danger of this person causing any harm to themselves or another.
Grade 3 (Scheduled Response)
The time in which the police respond to this incident is not of high priority. For example, the police have to take a statement from a person who has been assaulted. However the Police could arrange a time and place to question or take a statement for the given incident.
Grade 4 (Resolution Without Deployment)
These types of incidents can be concluded by advice over the telephone, or by being directed an Internet page of frequently asked questions. An example for these incidents could be, a driver has been given a fixed speeding penalty, speeders must attend a speed awareness course, the police can send a letter, or call the person about the detail of when to attend this course.
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Roles and Responsibilities (P2)
The Roles and Responsibilities of any emergency service that is first to any scene of an emergency must assess and provide information of the scene according to the following:
- Casualties - how many casualties there are.
- Hazards - any dangers that may threaten the services or casualties.
- Access - are there any obstacles that are preventing the services from gaining access to the scene or preventing rescue.
- Location - identify quickest route to the scene of the emergency incident.
- Emergency services - must provide information on which emergency services are required at the scene.
- Type of incident - they must use incident grading to assess the situation for each emergency service required.
- Start a log - they must record all details of all of the above.
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Police
The roles and responsibilities of the police are to:
- Uphold the law the fairly and firmly.
- Pursue and bring to justice those who break the law.
- Keep the Queen's peace.
- Protect, help and reassure the community.
- Operate with integrity, common sense and fair judgement.
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Ambulance
The roles and responsibilities of the ambulance service are to:
- Save life.
- Provide treatment, stabilisation and care at the scene.
- Provide support to those who involved with the patient.
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Fire
The roles and responsibilities of the fire service are to:
- Prevent and control a fire.
- Protect the lives of civilians.
- Quarantine hazardous areas.
- Preserve evidence at the scene of a deliberate fire.
- Protect the environment.
Importance of Safely Responding to Emergency Incidents as an Emergency Response Driver (P3)
For each emergency service, responding to an emergency incident needs to be achieved quickly but safely. The emergency response driver will be driving at excessive speeds through built up areas which has high risk to pedestrians.
In order for a response driver to respond in reality, they must first pass an advanced driving test to prove they can react to any distractions or other problems which may occur and prove they can control a vehicle at high speeds when responding to an emergency incident.
For example, the ambulance service respond driver must travel fast enough to get to the patient to treat the injuries, however if the driver is not quick enough then the casualty may be fatal before the response team gets to them.
When the driver gets the emergency call to respond with the highest priority, the drivers from each of the three emergency services must not exceed the set speed limit on that piece of road by a over excessive amount. For example, the driver is travelling on a 30 MPH road in a built area; the driver must not exceed speeds of around 45 MPH.
This expectation is purely for the pedestrian's safety in these types of areas; which emergency response driver will excessively driver through every day to respond to an emergency situation. The chances of knocking over a child playing in the street is much high travelling at excessive speeds, this is where the advanced driver's training will become reality.
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Scene Preservation and the Service Provisions of Specialist Units at Emergency Incidents (P4)
Any witnesses must been escorted away for the crime scene to limit any further contamination from that person and their details must be taken so that they can give a statement from their own opinion of what happened; this statement may be used to match against evidence.
For example, the witness speaks of a knife being used to harm the victim at the scene, the knife has been collected for evidence, blood from the knife matches blood of the victim therefore the witnesse's statement matches the evidence collected.
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Statutory and Voluntary Agencies (P5)
The Statutory agencies that attend an emergency incident are the Police, Ambulance service and the fire service. Sometimes the Statutory agencies will need assistance from voluntary services for some incidents that occur; these voluntary agencies are specialised in a specific area of rescue. For example:
- Mountain rescue, a voluntary service that is train to rescue people who may have an accident it the peak or lake district where there is limited ways to contact anybody for assistance.
- The British Red Cross, trained personnel to tackle any sort of disaster or crisis to help anybody in need of treatment of support after an accident.
- The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is a service that saves lives at sea. They provide a 24-hour lifeboat search and rescue service around the coasts of the UK and Republic of Ireland, as well as a seasonal lifeguard service on many of the busiest beaches in England and Wales.
- Lincolnshire air Ambulance, based at RAF Waddington, they fly 29 air ambulances to respond to any major incident. The current number of missions flown this year (26/11/2010 12:51) is 635.
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If there is an incident that may require both the Statutory and Voluntary agencies, teamwork between all the services needs to work like clockwork to resolve the situation quickly and effectively.
For example, a young boy was out with his friend and has fallen down onto a ledge on the cliff, he has a broken ankle and he can't escape. The mountain rescue would be first on the scene to assist the young boy; they will also need to give a grid reference to the air ambulance service to rescue the boy due to his injuries.
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Health and Safety Measures (P6)
The first service on the scene of the incident must assess the situation to comply with the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.
This Act is the first piece of legislation which explains how the be safe and healthy in a work environment, this Act branches of into other legislation's which include hoe to work safely at height, driving and other subjects. Here is a link to a website that I have found that explains in further detail about the Health and Safety Act; http://www.hse.gov.uk/legislation/hswa.htm
The first service; for example the Ambulance service, they must assess the situation and take note of the area that could be hazardous to their health or to others. For example, there could be a fuel leak from a wrecked vehicle and a pedestrian is beginning to light a cigarette. This is considered hazardous because fuel is highly flammable and the situation could get out of control very quickly.
All pedestrians should be removed or put at a safe distance from the scene, so the services can do their jobs and resolve the situation quickly but safely.
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Merit criteria
Roles and Responsibilities (M1)
Roles and Responsibilities (M1)
The Police, Ambulance and Fire service all have their own responsibilities; however they all must work together at a major emergency incident.
At a major incident the services must establish the chain of command:
Gold command - this is the highest form of command at an incident, gold command sets the strategy or the plan to resolve the incident.
Silver command - this is the secondary form of command, silver implements or passes on Gold's strategy for the incident.
Bronze command - this is the final command style which refers to everyone else who is called out to the incident and puts Gold's strategy into action.
The common objectives of the command structure is to save lives of those involved, prevent escalation of the incident, protect the environment and surrounding area of where the incident has occurred, restore the normality quickly but efficiently and without causing further damage or harm, and to contribute to a debriefing process when the above has been achieved and the incident is resolved.
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The Police
The Police will have to control the flow of traffic if there is any, block of the road or incident from the sight of civilian view so the services can operate quickly and effectively.
If the Police was the first service on the scene then they would have to produce a log of the incident to inform the other services of what has happened and what needs to be done to resolve the situation at the scene of the incident.
Most likely any sort of major incident will become a crime scene, even more so if there is a fatality. The Police will have to conduct an investigation at the scene to gather evidence for conviction.
For example, there has been a road traffic collision, it was a head on impact, one of the cars that were involved, and the driver and passenger were fatal. After the ambulance have done what they have needed to, the police now need to reconstruct the moment of impact and take into account the markings on the road that could be anything from scuff marks on the road surface, to braking marks from the tyres.
By doing this they can gather the evidence needed to figure out the collision, find out who was travelling above the speed limit and create a digital reconstruction of the event. This can be presented to a Magistrate or Judge if the case was to go to court.
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The Ambulance
The first priority of the Ambulance service is the save the life of any casualties involved in the incident.
Also they must provide treatment and stabilise the casualties at the scene, unless they immediately need to get to hospital for major treatment.
Same goes again for the Ambulance service if they are the first on the scene, they must create a log for the other services to work quickly and effectively.
The scene of the incident must be preserved as the Police and investigation teams will need to investigate the scene to understand why the incident happened, or to gather the evidence needed to convict a suspect.
Going back to the head on impact collision scenario, the driver of the other car is still alive but unconscious, due to the other two people already fatal, the priority is with the person from the other car who is still alive.
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Fire Service
At a major incident the Fire service could be extinguishing a car fire or a surrounding fire that could threaten the rescue process of a casualty.
The Fire service must detect and protect the scene from any hazards that may compromise the scene later for investigation.
Same as the other two services, the Fire service must create a log so the situation can be resolved as soon as possible.
The scene of the incident must have limited amount of personnel compromising the scene that could make the investigation into what happened more difficult to solve.
Finally back to the head on collision scenario, the unconscious driver is alive but is trapped in his car. This is a situation where the Fire and Ambulance service will have to work together quickly to get to the man before his injuries get worse.
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There are other agencies such the local authorities who assist with road closures and clearing up after the incident has occurred, the health and safety executive would have to be informed if it is a work related incident. If there was a spillage of dangerous chemicals or fuels, then the environmental agencies will need to be notified of this issue, also the utility companies E.G. gas, water, electricity and telephone cable companies will need to be informed if the incident effects any of these systems.
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Scene Preservation (M2)
The first personnel at the scene of the incident must record the time and date of when the incident occurred also they must record the weather conditions and protect the scene in a way possible.
For example, the area of where the incident happened must be cordoned or blocked off to stop access to the scene by pedestrians. If the scene is outdoors then a tent must be constructed to protect that specific area for later investigation.
The purpose of a search is to prove or disprove an offence.
The purpose of a search is to prove or disprove an offence.
No individual must be left unattended at the crime scene, as the evidence can be sabotaged; removed or contaminated that can make the investigation more difficult to determine a conviction from the evidence at the scene. The smallest fingerprint, fibre, hair, residue or substance, drop of blood or anything that could convict the criminal of the offence they have committed.
The emergency services must not disturb the scene to much that the service becomes part of the investigation, in order to stop any evidence of the emergency service being at the scene the personnel must:
- Gloves - to limit the risk of fingerprints being left at the scene.
- Masks and Hats - to stop hairs and any residue that can be left by the service personnel.
- Shoe or Boot covers - to stop tread prints of the service personnel at the scene of the incident.
- Long clothing - keep arms and legs covered to limit the loss of arm or leg hair at the scene.
- Goggles - to protect the forensics team when using specialist tools, gasses or liquids.
It is very important to preserve the scene as much as possible as the scene may have to be reconstructed to help determine how the incident happened and in what sequence the events of the incident occurred.
At the very start of the investigation, before any disruption of potential evidence is moved or touched, sketches and photographs are to taken for later reference. For example, the investigator may need to refer back to the images taken at the scene to confirm suspicions of a missed piece of evidence that is shown on the photograph taken at the scene.
Also when the photographs are taken, they can be referred back to when the investigators need to reconstruct the scene. For example, the scene reconstruction team need to re-enact the moment of impact of a head on collision; with the images and markings on the road surface they determine where the moment of impact occurred.
At any form of crime scene the Forensics team will be required to investigate the incident as they have the equipment and special training and knowledge to detect and collect evidence.
When the forensic team arrives at the scene, in theory they take over the situation and begin taking photos and collecting evidence, this is why the scene must be preserved to gather as much evidence as possible to identify the criminal that has committed the offence.
The emergency services still have to be attending the scene when the specialist units arrive, as they need to control the flow of traffic, direct pedestrians an alternate route away from the crime scene and assist the specialist units when needed whilst the investigation is underway.
Also the Health and Safety executive will be involved in this situation; also there are abbreviations which help the services to be prepared for a search or any other situation. For example, PPE (1992) stands for Personal Protective Equipment; this abbreviation is given to all the equipment that will assist the crime scene investigation team prevent contaminating the scene any further.
The second abbreviation is RIDDOR (1995) stands for Reporting Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations, this term describes how a team should produce a report or take notes as they search if something was to occur. For example, if a team was searching a car and there was a leak of fuel, this would a dangerous situation because this liquid is flammable therefore is a hazard and will cause serious injuries if ignited, also the evidence on the car will be destroyed is the car ignites.
Also the Health and Safety executive will be involved in this situation; also there are abbreviations which help the services to be prepared for a search or any other situation. For example, PPE (1992) stands for Personal Protective Equipment; this abbreviation is given to all the equipment that will assist the crime scene investigation team prevent contaminating the scene any further.
The second abbreviation is RIDDOR (1995) stands for Reporting Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations, this term describes how a team should produce a report or take notes as they search if something was to occur. For example, if a team was searching a car and there was a leak of fuel, this would a dangerous situation because this liquid is flammable therefore is a hazard and will cause serious injuries if ignited, also the evidence on the car will be destroyed is the car ignites.
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Health and Safety (M3)
The Police follow other Health and Safety legislation's that are part of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, the Police Health and Safety Act 1997. Additions were made to the Health and Safety act 1974 so the Police have guidelines to what valid extent they can put themselves or others (at the scene and on the route to responding the situation) at risk whilst responding to an emergency incident.
For further information on the Police Health and Safety Act 1997, here's a link explaining what was added to the Health and Safety Act 1974. http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?LegType=Act+(UK+Public+General)&searchEnacted=0&extentMatchOnly=0&confersPower=0&blanketAmendment=0&sortAlpha=0&PageNumber=9&NavFrom=0&parentActiveTextDocId=1431334&ActiveTextDocId=1431334&filesize=37086
The first response service on the scene will move all pedestrians away from the scene for their own safety and to prevent the scene gaining further contamination. "To many cooks spoil the broth" The responders to the incident are at risk if there are too many pedestrians obstructing access to the casualties.
Also the first crew on the scene must access what has occurred and inform the other services as they arrive at the scene of the incident, also brief them on how the situation is going to be resolved quickly but safely.
The services must watch out for their own welfare, so they don't cause injury for themselves, or even cause further injury to casualties or other service personnel.
All emergency response drivers who are advanced driver qualified will be tested responding to a situation where there is a large group of people obstructing the access to the scene, these drivers must be aware of situation at the scene before they arrive.
For example, the driver can be briefed about the situation via the radio system that will be in their emergency response vehicle. This is to ensure the driver has been forewarned and no further incident will occur whilst the driver is on route to the scene.
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Distinction criteria
Inter co-operation of the response services (D1)
The co-operation of the voluntary rescue services, other agencies and the emergency services is vital for purpose of the casualty and the people who are affected by the incident. If the services are not working together effectively the casualty or casualties injuries could become worse or the person could die at the scene. The people who could be affected are those who are related to the casualty and those who are travelling along where the incident has taken place.
The first priority in any emergency incident is to save the life of those involved, the emergency services have the responsibility to get people to safety quickly and safely as possible. For example, there has been an emergency incident where two small cars and a HGV lorry involved in a collision at junction 28 of the motorway. In the first car there is a woman who is in critical condition, in the second car there is a man and a young boy who are both fatal, the HGV driver has managed to get from his vehicle with minor cuts and scrapes.
The first priority in any emergency incident is to save the life of those involved, the emergency services have the responsibility to get people to safety quickly and safely as possible. For example, there has been an emergency incident where two small cars and a HGV lorry involved in a collision at junction 28 of the motorway. In the first car there is a woman who is in critical condition, in the second car there is a man and a young boy who are both fatal, the HGV driver has managed to get from his vehicle with minor cuts and scrapes.
Firstly the ambulance service must stabilise the critical women in the first small car, if the paramedics cant gain access to the car by opening the door, the fire service will have to work quickly but safely to remove the roof of the vehicle so the medics can safely remove the casualty for further treatment.
The HGV driver would now be treated for his injuries now the woman has been safely removed from her car, after the HGV driver has been treated, the Fire Service and Police must remove the bodies from the other small car.
Now all casualties and fatalities have been removed and are in process of being treated, the police and investigation team will need to photograph the scene for later reference and highlight specific markings on the road surface that could indicate towards any form of prevention by the drivers of the collision. Also when photographing the scene wide angle shots must be taken of where the cars were, to refer back to if the scene was needed to be reconstructed at a later date.
After the investigation team have gathered all the evidence, the Police will require assistance from recovery vehicles to remove the damaged cars and HGV lorry from the scene for further investigation in a controlled environment and less chance of contaminating any evidence that could be in any of the three vehicles.
Any debris that may cause any further problems for other motorists must be cleared of the road to ensure the safety of other road users.
Any debris that may cause any further problems for other motorists must be cleared of the road to ensure the safety of other road users.
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Impact of health and safety legislation/regulations on responding services (D2)
The health and safety executive (HSE) inspector is responsible for the encouragement, regulation and the enforcement of health and safety of the workplace. The HSE was established in 1974 by the health and safety at work act 1974.
The health and safety at work act 1974
The health and safety at work act 1974 effects the public services as the act states that "It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees." Therefore the public services must ensure their officers and personnel are of the best standard of health and are working safely within an emergency incident. For instance if the HSE was not present to enforce safety regulations, unsafe environments of the workplace will not be inspected for hazardous items that can cause harm to employees. Relating to the emergency services, the fire service has had an emergency call, the responding team to an incident must prepare to do so, however in the equipment room Oxygen tanks have been left out and one of the members has fallen and has badly hurt themselves. However, the HSE has been in to the fire station and has addressed that problem of equipment being left out causing a hazard for personnel.
PPE at work Act 1992
The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 is a set of rules and regulations that were set under the Health and Safety at work Act 1974. This Act orders employers to supply their personnel with the required protective equipment for the given situation. For example, the crime scene investigation team, their job is to gather every little piece of evidence to convict a suspect. To do this the team will need the necessary protective equipment to prevent the crime scene getting further contamination. Such as, gloves, protective suit, shoe covers or even an oxygen supply. If the search team didn't have the suitable equipment, many criminals would get away with committing crime due to insufficient evidence to convict the criminal.
COSHH Act 2002
The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 is in place as a statutory instrument which states requirements of an employer to protect their personnel and other people of hazardous materials and substances that are used or a person may come across when responding to an emergency incident. Relating to the emergency services, if there was a hazardous substance such as fuel is around the area of where the casualty is, the responding team need to remove that person as quickly as possible but safely to not cause any further harm to the casualty. If this problem occurred and the hazard was not identified this will endanger the casualty's lives and those of whom are responding to this incident.
RIDDOR Act 1995
The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995, is in place to clarify the lawful obligation of the employer and employees to report deaths, injuries, diseases and "dangerous occurrences that take place at the work place or in connection with responding to an emergency incident. For example, almost every week we have a report of another soldier fatality out in current operations, or how another dangerous explosion has destroyed a patrol vehicle. But relating to the three key services if there is major RTC incident on the M1, the injuries and dangers at the scene caused must be reported for later investigations. Also the media will inform the UK of the event that occurred and inform them of the road closures. If the dangers were not reported then the situation could become much worse as the road users will not be aware of the current incident and may become involved into the RTC and cause more injuries even fatalities.
