Volvoman, its worrying to here that you also experienced this.
Thankfully nobody required immediate attention in this case.
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If you need an emergency response call the Fire Brigade. They're still working pretty much to the pre-Bain Report standards of cover and will get a fire engine to you (normally) in 20 mins in a rural area; 8-10 mins suburbia; and 5 mins city or motorway. Make the most of it though - 'modernisation' will see standards become like the police & ambulance are now, I'm told.
Festive wishes to you all.
8 ball
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I wish I could emigrate (from the UK).
Yet another example of falling standards despite increasing levels of taxation.
I have hardly seen any police cars on local roads in the nearly-8 years that I have lived at my present address; maybe because I am less than 3 miles from the Surrey/Hants/Berks intersection, all 3 forces think that this is on the outer limits of their territory and prefer to keep their officers closer to the centre of their respective "patches"?
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When I lived in a small village a mere 2 miles from the nearerst fire station it took them 25 minutes to arrive when my car wiring shorted and the underbonnet area went up. More recently, had to call the fire service out to a supermarket car park less than half a mile from a retained fire station to a small fire, it took them 20 minutes to arrive by which time the fire had almost burned itself out. We used to have a HP or TL based at a local station and it was taken away so we have no waay of fighting fires or rescuing persons over 35 feet above ground level as the nearest HP is about 40 minutes response time away. Also we used (back in the 80's) to have an ERF Pump escape with 50 foot wheeled escape ladder based at a local station, now all we have are pumps with 35 foot ladders. so if your on the roof it looks like a big jump is in order.
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It's all very worrying
It'll be interesting to see how the new policy works but something needs to be done about this situation urgently.
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A senior paramedic told me that their ambulances now only have one stretcher position not two. All to do with Health & Safety regulations.
This must adversely affect their response times.
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Henry - I've long been banging on about the impact of H&S, insurance and data protection requirements. This seems to be yet another crazy example of an ill conceived set of rules designed to protect one group of people which, in the real world, has just the opposite effect on another. So are we now going to need twice as many ambulances and paramedics to do the same job ?
There may be light at the end of the tunnel though because, apparently, the Data Protection act is going to be reviewed (AT LAST!!!) to prevent serious conflicts of interest like those exposed in the Soham case and more recently with the death of 2 pensioners whose gas had apparently been cut off but whose names couldn't be passed to social services because of the DP regulations. Let's hope the 'government' sees sense and does something about these crazy situations which are increasingly affecting many aspects of our lives.
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Although I agree with the seriousness of the problem outlined by Volvoman in the previous post, this thread has drifted a long way from Emergency Service response times and therefore motoring.
Please remember that this is not a political forum.
Back to motoring, or the thread gets locked.
No Dosh
mailto:Alan_moderator@honestjohn.co.uk
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The major problem with the emergency services is their huge inefficiences, and no it is not a political statement, simply a fact.
The vast majority of fires do not require a full tender turnout and very few thankfully involve a risk to life. Similarly the vast majority of ambulance calls involve one patient.
In most areas the traditional ambulances are being replaced by single crewed Rapid Respose Vehicles, which speed up response times can access more areas and therefore save more lives. They have no stretcher space. For the vast majority of cases time to hospital is not critical to outcome. It is time to stabilisation of the injury/problem which can be performed equally well and faster by an RRV rather than a traditional ambulance.
If a ride to the hospital is required then a traditional ambulance will be called.
To bring it full circle I don't know if any one else has picked up on this:
www.highways.gov.uk/news/translink/2003_08/01.htm
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I wonder how many emergency service vehicles are called out unnecessarily. After my recent prang - rear end shunt, just two cars but both quite well damaged, nobody hurt - the recovery man (who I guess must have more experience of these matters than me or the other guy) was very surprised that we hadn't informed the police. Surely this would just have resulted in more hassle/paperwork all round, for us and the police.
Though I guess if I had doubted the integrety of the other driver I might have called the police.
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ISTR that if an ambulance is called to an RTA, they will automatically get the police to attend too. Don't know why though.
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If someone is injured I believe it is a legal requirement to call the Police.
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Don't know about that - if someone sees an accident and thinks that someone MAY be hurt, without knowing for sure, so calls for an ambulance as a precaution, the police are still called by the ambulance service before the ambulance has reached the scene and therefore before they know if anyone really is injured.
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Quite happy to be corrected on this but the situation as I've come to understand it is...
The police are only actually required to attend road traffic collisions if people are injured OR one of the vehicles concerned is damaged sufficiently enough that it might be a write-off. They might attend also if the collision is causing a further hazard to other vehicles (e.g if it's blocking a road or on a bend).
When you dial 999, if you ask for the police first, the operators are trained to ask enough about the incident to see if any of the above criteria apply, and if they don't, they advise the caller on what to do (swap details etc). The details are then passed on to the ambulance service if necessary.
If you ask for the ambulance first, the ambulance is dispatched and then the call is patched through to the police dispatcher as the assumption is made that people are injured. They stay in contact so that whoever gets there first can advise the other if they are not required.
If people are not so badly injured that they need to go to hospital, they can report the collision at their local police station within a certain amount of time (not sure, but I think it might be 7 days), which takes away the need for police to attend.
Not sure if that's actually how you spell dispatched, but hope that's clearish.
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Pologirl, you are correct when you say that Police are required to attend if someone is injured and the injured person is reuired to report the accident to the police immediately., they currently must attend if the vehicles are blocking the highway Ie causing a harzard, but the actual damage to the vhicle has nothing to do with it as it is the drivers responsibilty to clear up their vehicle from the sie, not the police. Unless they are causing a hazard. The ambulance service and the police service are 2 completely seperate organisations they do not have a compatible radio system and so cannot talk to each other, there is no communication between patrol officers and the ambulance service, its all done via the polices or ambulance services central control room seperately If the police come across and injury accident they ask the police control room to ring the emergency 999 operator who puts the police control room in touch with the ambulance service who then call out an ambulance. Police vehicles cannot and never have been able to communicate with ambulances (or fire service ) for that matter. Also the police are not allowed to give a medical opinion, so once an ambulance is called it cannot be cancelled by the police same goes for fire service. If the fire service code of practice says an incident needs 2 pumps and a crash tender then that is what is sent irrespective of what the police may feel. And as fire police and ambulance are NOT in contact with one another via radio then they all act independantly.
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Firstly, IIRC, there is no Statutory authority REQUIRING the Police to attend the scene of an accident. They do so as part of their many services to Joe Public.
Long ago, when you believed in Santa Claus, virtually all accidents were reported to the Police or Ambulance. Each service cross checked to make sure the other aware, with Ambulances attending scenes when not required but as a safeguard. Fire were called if a known reason for their attendance was present.
Police had to submit a file on each accident, whether injury or not and due care etc routinely reported and taken to Court.
Along the line, it was decided that as far as non injury accidents were concerned these were time consuming and Plod working for Insurance Companys and minor non injury accidents could be resolved by exchanging names and addresses. If Plod attended such accidents to clear obstruction, then no paperwork unless a glaring offence committed. File has to be submitted on injury accidents.
Trend now for Multi Emergency Service Control Rooms, there is one of the first up North, where Police,Fire and Ambulance share
the same Control Room/Building.
DVD
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DVD where are these joint control rooms "Up-north" Im based in the East Midlands and neither my force neither any of our bordering forces have any plans for a joint control room. We have just had "airwave" Tetra installed and its totally independant of any other emergency services and Im not aware of fire or ambulance going ahead with it up t now. Also as you are no doubt aware, Its each forces cheif who decides "operational rules" and ours are that all injury RTC's must be attended. As far as joint control rooms go the Ambulance service have recently opened a new Control room of their own close to a major hospital so unless there is some kind of joint funding system in progress I cant see this force sharing facilities any time soon. Also bear in mind that our local ambulance service covers 3 county's (EMAS), wheras police and fire are still seperate and still county based.
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>>thereis no communication between patrol officers and the ambulance service, its all done via the polices or ambulance services central control room
That's what I meant - sorry!
>>Also the police are not allowed to givea medical opinion, so once an ambulance is called it cannot be cancelled by the police same goes for fire service.
Yes but in the real world away from Codes of practice, the first service on the scene of an accident *does* let the others know whether they are required. e.g if anxious people had called police and ambulance to a collision, and the police got there first and there was noone injured, the police ask their control room to let the ambulance know they weren't needed. From personal experience I've seen this happen at least twice in different force areas.
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John, I believe joint control rooms are to be found in Middlesborough and I think, Hull. I'm not aware of any others.
Reggie
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HI pologirl, happy Christmas, and to Reggie too. Yes PG the first on scene does let the other services know what is needed and I have done so myself on numerous occassions, but in one case the rapid respnse paramedic was cancelled, but he came anyway and we were told it was not right to cancel him because only he could give an opinion as to injuries. Joint control rooms would however make a lot of sense, but I beleive the main difficulty is to find the funding for them. At the moment, a lot of 999 cals are handled by a massive emergency operator centre in Glasgow, before being diverted to each service at a local level. But in my area, as ive said we dont have a county based ambulance service. EMAS covers 3 counties wheras police and fire are divided into counties Oddly enough Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire share a police helicopter on a 50/50 funding basis, but Leicestershire have their own (or had )One has to remeber that in reality there is no homogeneity in this area, the "East Midlands" is a purely politcal creation as we cover from near the Greater Manchester border in the North right down to Leicestershire in the south which is a massive area of central England. There have been times when a traffic car in our county has had to drive over an hour to get to an RTC due to non availibilty of local units or other traffic cars., this is down to too few officers covering a big rural area but one where there are all too many traffic accident blackspots. I see that the Highways Agency is looking at implementing its new plan for "Road Traffic Officers" to patrol our motorways with the police. At least it may take off the burden of doing more mindane "Oversize load" escort duties from the police and deal with minor incidents.
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Reported earlier this year in our Rgeional (hic) Newspaper that Cleveland was the first to have a multi agency control room but initially there were some objections from the Unions. Was going to confirm tomorrow that it was up and running. Meanwhile in Hawkeyes country, a beloved old majestic (hic) Police Station with cells, Court House and Sergeants Flat has met the axe and Police now lodged with Fire Brigade in Town centre. All down to economi (hic)s.
Meanwhile John Shelton another of your duties to be taken away and civilianised - VOSA, in garish dress, are to be given the power to stop vehicles at their checks. Get Form 1 in to becoma a Div,div (hic) ersity Officer.
Phew that brandy sauce is rich.
DVD Crash.
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Most traffic police would be pleased to not have to escort oversize loads at 25 mph up the M1 and concentrate on nicking uninsured and unlicesenced drivers and pro car twoce'rs and burglars en route to and from a job.
PS. Ive already had my "diversity" course and I was the only one in my office to fully complete the booklet.......LOL
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Reggie
Its a no to a joint control in Hull (Humberside). Had TENYAS (Ambulance) in the same building for a while but they moved out to York.
Fullchat
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