Is it time for a re-think?

[chook]

Recent posts have indicated that after all of this time there maybe some minor issues still occuring (he says this tongue in cheek).
Volunteer numbers are still falling across the services.
People don't want to do all of the training
Responses are either too much or too little, or just plain inappropriate.
Volunteers are expected to know & do more - both in operations & Administration
For SES people outside of Adelaide when was the last time you used your "Basic" rescue skills in anger? For SES RCR operators are not the skills learnt in "Advanced rescue module one" the same as most of the stuff you do every time you do RCR(either training of for real)?
For CFS outside of the greater metro area when was the last time you stopped a structure burning down in your town by offensive fire fighting?
In reality how many people(CFS,SES,SAMFS Retained) can you get who are fully qualified for the task in hand on the truck every time the pager drops?
 
I think these questions if answered truthfully would shock a few people, I know the answers for this area &depending on the day of the week & the time of year, No one could forfill the crewing criteria, either in raw numbers or persons qualified.
And it is obvious that the situation is getting worse not better - Station Blah Emergency Page, More Crew required, Blah defaulted.
So what is the answer?
Every state in Australia has a different way of managing the provision of emergency services - however none are even similar to us.
So I would be interested in your thoughts (& Numbers I all ready know your idea, in the states that have Fire & Rescue -its only in the major centres not the size towns I'm taking about) 
cheers

[RescueHazmat]

I think the Govt. has forgotten about Volunteers, or, they just don't care anymore..

[jaff]

I think the Govt. has forgotten about Volunteers, or, they just don't care anymore..

Come on RescueHazmat, its a fairly simple deduction, do you forget about something that you care about!.............  NO, for sometime now the government has failed the services ,especially the volunteers .

THE TRIBE HAS SPOKEN,.........ITS TIME TO GO CARMEN!!!

Please note these are my views and in no way do I intend to represent the tribe.

Cheers Jaff

[chook]

I don't think you can just blame the government.
I think its time to put my filtered on a block as they say!
Last financial year we attended 61 incidents, the the vast majority were Road crash response (note response not rescue), followed by storm damage & a distant third land search.
Of all of those responses I've used the skills from basic rescue twice (climbing a ladder 3 times), used a stokes once (at a RCR didn't lash them in though).
think we used a chainsaw twice - didn't fell any trees though (not in this state anyway), sandbagged twice and used our pump twice.
Of all of the RCR's we used our skills (&tools) to extract one living casualty (& assisted with one fatal).
3 of those responses were out of area -2 storm 1 fire support.
50+ involved multi agency/ multiple units.
I'm currently share the responsibility for approximately $1 million in assets(buildings, vehicles & equipment).
Going by the above I would question the amount & type of training we do.
The brigades/units surrounding would be similar, so my question is what is the priority for training, equipment & people?
Is the 100's of hours of training that we do & yet we don't use the majority of it worth while?
Is it really necessary for a RCR rescue team to have a minimum of 4 qualified when other resources will be there? (In Victoria the minimum is two qualified).
Is it really a pointless exercise insisting on re-qualification in skills that are not used?
Or expecting small units/brigades to meet all of the requirements that everyone knows that they can't?
WA uses Volunteer Emergency response Units in small towns (a mix of fire & SES skills but only the stuff they need for their area), NSW RFS basic safety on the fire ground & basic fire fighting, Victoria basically one service does fire & one service does rescue (I know there is some variations but thats how it is on the whole).
So what do you reckon?
cheers

[bajdas]

Personally I have stopped training in the extra skills that I am not using as a SES volunteer. People keep saying 'we need to train in case we are needed..'. But in reality it will most probably be someone else (other agencies or volunteers) who will do the exciting stuff.

I believe you do need to do the courses at least once to gain the appreciation of the skill. You might not tie that knot exactly, but you do know what is happening to be part of a team.

I don't think you need to do everything within 6 or 12 months, or to have all skills to go on a truck. Not enough appreciation of skills you have learnt outside of the volunteer organisation (eg Recognition of Prior Learning).

My crystal ball worries me that an umbrella organisation for CFS, MFS, SES, VMR & maybe SAAS, is becoming the aim in South Australia. Under the name of "Shared Services" (eg SACAD, media, payroll, IT, finance, training, capital purchasing,  etc).

I believe the agencies will exist, but will be smaller & specialised to specific skills (mainly by paid staff !!). For example, the current government plan to country hospitals.

I think the front line, local responders (paid & volunteer) will provide the initial general skills & equipment to minimise the affects of the emergency to the community.

Then the specialised skills & equipment will be flown (via Police Air Wing & medical retrieval teams) or trucked in to resolve the emergency (eg strike teams & aircrane).

My worry is:

** what politics will be played as people try to keep their status or job during the change (volunteer & paid).

** where do volunteers fit without 'doing more of the non-exciting stuff' (eg SAAS volunteers doing country SuperGP to country hospital transfers or volunteers minding accident scenes for 12 hours plus waiting for Police Accident Investigation or PAPERWORK !!).

I understand some of the logic that removing duplication reduces cost & standardise skills / equipment could provide a better service. But I think we have the potential to lose a lot of skilled volunteers.

I think part of the driving force is getting value for money & the Australian public more wanting to blame someone else for the incident (& going to court or OH&S restrictions), rather than accepting it is part of life & moving on.

Finally I believe that if we has volunteers are to have any influence over the change, then the volunteer associations (eg SASESVA, CFSVA & VMR equivalent) need to merge. They need to associate to Surf Life Saving (who now go through SES to government as part of Marine Rescue) & build links to MFS REtained & SAAS volunteers.

With a reduced cost base (get rid of a executive officer & consultants)& being a single entity representing emergency services volunteers, they might be able to stop relying on agency money & have more influence by representing a large amount of people.

My thoughts only & not part of the organisations I am associated with **

[chook]

filtered filtered Andrew! Well said
you maybe aware of something that has been proposed in our organisation, which if it comes to pass will significantly impact all SES rescue units in the future (sadly I can't say what it is until I talk to my guys first & this may not be the forum either). And now when I think about it what you are saying about the future could be where this is all heading those specialist teams could include SES people!
Just be careful my friend - remember my career with our service is ending but yours isn't!
there are some powerful forces at work & you don't want to tangle with them - again
The sad truth is the power of the volunteer is slowly diminishing - we moved from a bunch of local guys (a generic term) raising money & making do, to a professional, government department accepting government funds (with all of the issues attached) so as unpaid government workers we are considered a different animal to the past.
Thats the reason behind my original question -are the grouping, equipment & rules of the past suitable for a modern emergency service?
cheers

[SA Firey]

If they want to modernise it the spend some more money and give us the equipment to do the job properly, instead of a bandaid solution

[bittenyakka]

I think the first issue it make the grunts on the ground happy.

a) convince us that region/ the chain of command actauly wants to work (and hence does) in a good and timely manner. I know everyone says it does and i have seen it work but simple issues took a Stupidly long time.

b) put some real money into the various organizations. I haven;t met 1 CFS vollie who would prefer to have a sky crane than 15 new trucks and the high moral that would bring

c) get a much better community feeling amongst the CFS eg. where has the volunteer magazine gone.

d) open up and make the top echelons MUCH more open eg. a weekly newsletter emailed directly to ALL volunteers and post minutes of big meetings online.

[boredmatrix]

it's interesting how on one area on this forum people were appearing to be very hesitant about forming a union in which to apply pressure to their respective ESO's and the government......while others are asking for suggestions on how to recruit/retain/do things properly!!

does anyone in any service ask their people the "why" questions?

you can't argue there is no money...we all pay our ESL and have seen the effects of it to some degree or other in the last few years.  

my question wouldn't be WHY do we struggle - but WHY ARE WE TOLERATING it?

 

[chook]

Sadly mate you are right of course, but forming a powerful union type body would quickly achieve what some maybe slowly engineering now!
With out going into the detail our service is applying a rule thats always been there, but going to the extreme end of compliance.
Now that we have signed a charter that also has some rules attached (something that was developed with very little consultation until 3 weeks prior to the official signing), we will be forced to follow the rules regardless of how unobtainable most units will find it!
Not unless there is a major change to how our service is structured, trained & developed. My unit for example will struggle to meet the required target within the time frame allocated - unless we get 10 - 12 really dedicated people & availability of training courses doubles at least! And that is without me leaving at the end of the month! Thats why I asked the question does the current setup work in our modern times. Or should our respective services look at a different way of delivering the service?
cheers

[pumprescue]

As much as we hate to admit, 99% of our calls are nothing jobs. Typical scenario in rural area's , vehicle accident in some cases gets MFS, CFS and SES. How many times do you see "CFSRES: MORE CREW REQUIRED" or " STN ## EMERGENCY PAGE" or "MORE CREW REQUIRED FOR TASKING". Then we see a couple of them default, so we have umpteen services responding to what turns out to be a minor job. A lot of the time you find that the CFS had 2 or 3 crew, SES had 2 or 3 crew and MFS had 2 or 3 crew. Now its been a while since I went to school, but thats 9 people and not a single vehicle has responded anywhere......as a member of the public, I would be going "what the hell" as a fire service member I am thinking "what the hell, thats 2 trucks worth there"
When you put it down in writing it sounds insane, a town can't get a single resource to a job yet 9 people have rocked up. Again if I was a member of the public I would be saying, why don't they pool their resources ? Before you all say they are all different, then I think Chook summed it up pretty well. His area is a prime example of this. He admitted himself that none of the services really use anything above the basic skills. So we do we keep flogging this 3 services idea when we could pool resources to at least get a fire truck on the road. As I said 99% of calls are run of the mill, and for the odd "big disaster" you could have special teams that come in with the all the bells and whistles.

I think we are almost at crisis point in all the services, something has to give, perhaps its our individual identities, who knows, but it has to be something, I happen to come from a healthy volunteer service, but those are few and very far between these days, and our HQ's certainly don't help us to keep our staffing levels up. I know of a station not far from me that got to the point of having no one respond at all during the day, someone would come after work and re-set things and fill out the fire report saying no one responded. This went on for over 6 months, not once did CFS region or HQ ring them or check up on them, they had to spend many hours of their own time to dig themselves out of a hole, and all credit to them, they did a good job. They still haven't seen anyone from CFS, I think they might have received some pamphlets from the VSO after approaching the many acting staff members that work at the region. I swear sometimes the HQ's of many of our services really would rather we didn't exist. They only seem to run around and look busy when something bad happens. Don't they spend anytime at all looking at the fire reports, or getting stats for brigades or units in their regions and going "oh wow, so and so brigade or unit hasn't managed to get on the road to anything this month, maybe I should check up on them and see how they are going, or at least get one of my staff to check up on them" Even some of the response times are blowing out beyond the point of being useful, and no one is immune from that.
I just wish they would show that they care about us doing a basic thing like getting a vehicle on the road. We don't care about helicopters or lapel pins or letters saying well done. Help us to get out the door !!

Bring on the big change, we sure as hell need it !!

[chook]

Geez mate & I thought I was being suitably vague enough that people wouldn't guess what I was talking about
And you are dead right - a brigade here has an experimental 14 that requires less people to operate & all of our RCR gear requires less operators (i.e you don't need anyone at the pump to change tools) & we know the local SAMFS guys & when we are short they help with our gear/task, so our current local working arrangements work.
However going forward we won't be allowed to join the party at all, & that means neither does our gear!
To be fair our regional guy (who is co-located with us) knows the problem (even gets the truck out of the shed when we get a job & is willing to come out on the road to make up the numbers ), is as perplex as to the reasons we can't get the number of new members we are!
And this impacts across all taskings, not just RCR. Don't get me wrong in theory I support the idea that rules should be followed, as long as those rules are practical & underpin what we are all trying to achieve - a safer community.
However if rules are enforced that are not practical or acheivable what is the point!
Anyway I think I've said enough
cheers

[bajdas]

it's interesting how on one area on this forum people were appearing to be very hesitant about forming a union in which to apply pressure to their respective ESO's and the government......while others are asking for suggestions on how to recruit/retain/do things properly!!

does anyone in any service ask their people the "why" questions?

you can't argue there is no money...we all pay our ESL and have seen the effects of it to some degree or other in the last few years.  

my question wouldn't be WHY do we struggle - but WHY ARE WE TOLERATING it?

 

For myself, it is a learning curve on how a government department works from a partial-insider perspective.

Also, it is acceptance that the process began very slowly years ago. The leaders learnt from the 1990's that the 'big bang change' upset alot of people (see http://www.sasesva.org.au/history.htm). So now they are rationalising very slowly so that it makes good sense without upseting toooo many people.

I think some specialised groups will get the best as secondary responders, while others will get the general.

For example in metropolitan Adelaide, you have three (maybe more) highly specialised Units who have waiting lists of volunteers wishing to join. Also a specialised equipment stock has been built under SHQ control. The others still do a great job, but do not have that level of equipment.

Look at what equipment you have in your shed (incl the building) and how often it gets used. If you personally had to pay for it, would you have that much money sitting around ??

[jaff]

Rationalising very slowly, thats how some cultures describe it! Ask the frog that is placed in warm water and slowly brought to the boil,mmmm much better, or my personal favorite is death by a thousand cuts

[chook]

Andrew, that is great in theory & may work in the Metro Area. In the country, how would it work then? The ability to fly in specialist teams would work for one incident what if there were 4 or 5 across the state? (It happens)
And if what I'm talking about is applied equally across the services, then the first unit/ brigade/ station is paged - they can't respond (lack of qualified numbers), defaults to the second - defaults lack of numbers - defaults to third on the list. Need I go on? And remember the first, second & possibly third units don't leave the shed, so they can't add to the numbers to make up a full crew. And it may not be the response qualification thats lacking, it could be some obscure qual that has little relevance to the task at hand (think basic rescue for an RCR /Marine crew for example).
As I said it works fine in theory & remember our "core" functions that every unit must be qualified in & practice regularly - there are specialist units around who a very good at our day to day role but really don't practice those legislated core functions.
So as I said the current way we work, works well & services the prime need of the community.
So if change is required then it has to deliver just as good or better service, otherwise it's just serving another agenda! Or a big rethink on how all of this is to be achieved with the current staff levels & budget. Interestingly the NSW SES budget has been raised to $57.6 million & that is without the ESL!
cheers

[bajdas]

Andrew, that is great in theory & may work in the Metro Area. In the country, how would it work then? The ability to fly in specialist teams would work for one incident what if there were 4 or 5 across the state? (It happens)
And if what I'm talking about is applied equally across the services, then the first unit/ brigade/ station is paged - they can't respond (lack of qualified numbers), defaults to the second - defaults lack of numbers - defaults to third on the list. Need I go on? And remember the first, second & possibly third units don't leave the shed, so they can't add to the numbers to make up a full crew. And it may not be the response qualification thats lacking, it could be some obscure qual that has little relevance to the task at hand (think basic rescue for an RCR /Marine crew for example).
As I said it works fine in theory & remember our "core" functions that every unit must be qualified in & practice regularly - there are specialist units around who a very good at our day to day role but really don't practice those legislated core functions.
So as I said the current way we work, works well & services the prime need of the community.
So if change is required then it has to deliver just as good or better service, otherwise it's just serving another agenda! Or a big rethink on how all of this is to be achieved with the current staff levels & budget. Interestingly the NSW SES budget has been raised to $57.6 million & that is without the ESL!
cheers

That is what worries me at meetings.... Yes, they can apply the same theory to major region centres as well as metro, but I think they will be rationalising tooo far.

[Zippy]

Ill do basic rescue when its a single saturday and sunday course.  why i say that?   the current setup takes too long to complete and time is precious to a volunteer.

Anyone agree with me that 1980's training material's is "old"?  Maybe even remove the fold up stretchers part of the course, as i am pretty sure it wont ever be used in anger.

Maybe the SES could take a leaf out of the CFS state training course's standard, pretty please

[Mike]

The Basic rescue course in on its way out Zippy. Just need those up top to sign off on the new Rescue Operations course....

Alot of courses at STC are still run fri night, sat and sun, and im quite fond of this. With unit level courses it depends on who is co-ordinating it as to how it runs though. Its all about group dynamics, and fitting into peoples life styles.

[Zippy]

Alot of courses at STC are still run fri night, sat and sun, and im quite fond of this.

Undoubtably!!!  A weekend at Brukunga is a weekend well spent.

Thanks mike for that info,  at last some progression. (or am i speaking too soon)

[chook]

Mike - I'm not sure if you are aware but we trialled a new way of delivering General rescue Module one (the old basic) in East region, along with Induction, Basic Skills, Map reading, & when released the new comms package. Sadly I'm not sure if we will be able to run any more pilots (the word is NO). And I know the "flexable learning" that was part of the package was not wholly endorsed by the State Training team. Also the demise of the East Regional training officer position didn't help.
The workshop went really well once those involved understood how it works.
Its a real pity there hasn't been any more work in that direction - because it would have helped deliver on the targets that are being foreshadowed.
As a trainer in a number of core disciplines I was happy to travel the Region (& the state) to assist in the delivery of the core skills. Unfortunately career (paid one),time & politics has stopped any further involvement in the project - pity because it was an exciting initiative!
cheers

[Mike]

Im aware of that course.
Havent had a chance to look through the outcomes yet. I gathered the powers that be had issues though.

[chook]

Yep some did - however the power himself din't afterall I was told he approved the trial. Anyway Mike it doesn't matter - its not happening so that is that. A real pity because it would have helped with what is being proposed by those same powers! As you may be aware I'm going to NSW in approx 6 weeks - here is their State Rescue board rule on the number of qualified rescuers in a team
Rescue Crews
2.03 The minimum crew required to respond to a rescue incident is two qualified and
current operators. Trainees may attend to conduct on the job training, in addition
to the two qualified rescue operators, but must be supervised by a qualified and
currently competent rescue operator not actively involved in the rescue.
Victoria is similar, the stuff on training mention previously & the realistic requirements for crew size is what I was thinking about when I started this thread. As I said it won't really affect me personally, but I'm concerned about possible changes that will have a negative impact on the community.
cheers

[boredmatrix]

Sadly mate you are right of course, but forming a powerful union type body would quickly achieve what some maybe slowly engineering now!
With out going into the detail our service is applying a rule thats always been there, but going to the extreme end of compliance.
Now that we have signed a charter that also has some rules attached (something that was developed with very little consultation until 3 weeks prior to the official signing), we will be forced to follow the rules regardless of how unobtainable most units will find it!

oh well....if thats the management style.... S H 1 T flows downhill, so sooner or later people will get sick of it knocking them on the top of the head at the frontline....

fast forward 15 years and implement a senate inquiry into why ESO's struggle to retain volunteers - and communities are put at risk.  tens of thousands of $$$ later - they discover that everyone is sick of having to deal with the beaureacrats and not being listened to....so suggest that ESO's implement policies which are volunteer friendly!  In the meantime..the appeal of volunteering for an ESO is not an attractive one and takes 10 years to rebuild!

it is such rocket science...I can understand why they don't fix it now!!

[bajdas]

Every other state seems to have a different system, with some under a central control/admin functions. Is this working in the other states (eg WA which have long distances). I understand QLD volunteers are not happy. What happens in NSW, VIC, TAS & NT ?

[chook]

In NSW the state rescue board sets the rule for all who do rescue! Police, NSWFB, SES, Ambulance, VRA + a host of others. There are two types Land & Marine (read sea). The board sets the standards & there are state & regional committees of the board (which has All of the ESO's & Police as members). Very indepth resolution process etc. The documents are available from www.emergency.nsw.gov.au/content.php/497.html
Sorry I haven't looked into the other states much - Victoria is simpler though same standard for all 3 ESO's which can be accessed from
http://www.justice.vic.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/DOJ+Internet/Home/Community+Safety/Road+Safety/JUSTICE+-+Road+Rescue+Arrangements+Victoria
SA RCR arrangements are governed by the Road Crash Rescue Directory
As for QLD, NT & WA I'm not sure.
cheers