Agencies Involved in Incidents

Identify the Agencies That Were Involved in Different Major Incidents

In major incident different agency will work together to help the public and help each other and solve the problems. There are statutory and non statutory.

Statutory:

• Local Authorities (government and the department )
• Police (include the specialist departments)
• Fire service(include chemical response team and underwater team rescue team)
• Ambulance and Health Services
• Highway Agencies (control the movement motorways)
• The Environment (looking after the environment and works with other government organization like Police and fire service)
• Armed force(specialist unit called for major incident )
• Rescue Cave (work with police rescuing people from caves)
• Coast Guard (work with police and rescuing people from sea)

Non Statutory:

• The Salvation Army (works in UK provide shelters and food and drinks)
• British Red Cross (work abroad and in UK provide shelters and food and drinks)
• ST John Ambulance (is a volunteer-led charitable organisation dedicated to the teaching and practice of first aid)
• Samaritans (Samaritans volunteers help people explore their feelings and work out their own way forward)
• Victim Support (help people to cope with the emotional impact of crime.)
• Age UKDogs Trust (looking after injured dogs and retie dogs providing house for dogs)
• British heart foundation (they fund extra research into the causes, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of heart and circulatory disease.)

A good example of car crash is the Sheppey Crossing where over 130 cars were involved. They work together to help people and save lives.

Police went there to close roads, and clear the way for other services. Police also help civilian who were not injured and take them to one side. They check the area which services are needed.

In that all three all services were involved statutory and voluntary agencies were also included. They worked together to help the public and also help each other to solve the case how it happened.

Police did their investigation. Police also help ambulance to take out the injured people and they help the fire services by giving the information what happen how cars are involved.

Then the fire services help the ambulance to take out the injured people and then they clear the the roads.

All of the emergency services must work together effectively in order to save lives and prevent incidents from happening again.

All non statutory agencies were there to help the public service and the public as well.

British Red Cross went there to victim of the crash and give them help whatever they need. They shelters and water to keep from the injured people. Red Cross also help the public services in their work.

Describe the work of agencies at UK incidents and their legal duties:

They are statutory and none statutory agencies that work together.

Statutories are the organisations funded by the government, and they have to follow the rule and regulation. These rules and regulations are made by the government in the parliament. These agencies are responsible for upholding the law and looking after community that they serve.

Police

The role of police during a major incident is to coordinate the operation whist the major incident is taking place. Because of the organizational and operational capacity of the police service the service has to liaise with the local authorities and the other emergency services.

The police is responsible for all persons in around the scene of the incident. It is also the responsibility of the police service to ensure that the scene of the incident is preserved for investigations and inquiries which could lead to criminal prosecutions.

Roles and responsibilities of the police:

• Saving and preserving life in conjunction with the other emergency services
• The protection of property
• Co-ordinating the other emergency services and category two supporting responders
• The preservation and protection of the scene of the incident in conjunction with other investigating bodies
• Collecting the details of casualties
• Restoring order and normality at the earliest opportunity after the incident
• Coordination between the local authorities and the emergency services.

Fire Service

During an incident the fire and rescue services primary function is the preservation of life and property. The fire and rescue services also have the responsibility to provide humanitarian services and safeguard the environment.

Role and responsibilities of the fire services:

• To carry out search and rescue and fire fighting operations
• Control the access to the incident area and are responsible for the safety of everyone that are working and entering the inner cordon.
• Prevent any further escalation of the incident by tackling fires dealing with chemical spills and other hazardous and dangerous materials Liaise with the ambulance service incident officer to see if the ambulance service requires any assistance and the sorting of the priority of casualties
• If needed assist the police with collecting the dead
• Assisting in collecting evidence and giving evidence at investigations and inquiries
• Remain on standby at site to ensure safety.

Ambulance Services

The ambulance services a part of the National Health Service they are responsible for the administration of medical care and aid to those injured in an incident. It the responsibility of the ambulance service to transport casualties to the hospital to receive further medical treatment.

Role and responsibilities of Ambulance services:

• Alert and mobilize NHS Staff and personnel to deal with the incident
• Saving lives alongside the other emergency services Provide treatment and care for persons who have been injured in the incident
• Alert the hospital of the incident in order to prepare for casualties
• Restore order and normality after the incident
• Communications between the paramedics at the scene and the hospital
• Ensure that there is appropriate transport to the hospitals for the casualties
• Explain the main considerations when planning and preparing for major incidents.

Emergency plans are prepared already in case of that the major incidents happen so the emergency responders are prepared to follow the plan and respond to it with full professionalism.

All emergency services cooperate with other agencies makes it more effective by sharing of information which is key part of planning and responding to the major incident.

To ensure that everything will be done properly the emergency planning personnel must have access to resources, agencies need to know their roles, be capable to carry out the tasks and have the confidence in other responders.

Emergency planning is divided in to five elements such as:

• Respond
• Recovery
• Assessment
• Preparedness
• Prevention

Respond

Different emergency services respond has different repomd to an incident. There are five types of responding to the incident which depends of the nature of responder and those:

• Ambulance Service: In case of the ambulance service there is an Ambulance Incident Officer which coordinates the NHS response which is the ambulance’s primary role at the major incident. They have to ensure that they have sufficient medical and human resources at the scene but some of the major incidents because of the medium (regional) scale might need to cooperate with Health Protection Agency which is responsible to provide scientific advice with specialist medical staff. In case of larger scale which is national or international the Department of Health takes over the command to coordinate the National Health Service response.
• Fire and Rescue Service – As every service they have their own responsibilities and primary functions which in case of major incident as they have a lot of resources such as heavy rescue equipment and necessary skills which will be used in the high risk/dangerous areas during rescuing the casualties trapped by wreckage, fire, chemicals or fallen buildings. Other abilities as the NIFRS provides will be advice to the other services about the health and safety issues at the scene, evacuation of the people affected or who are under risk of being harm and pumping the water from flooded places. They are also equipped and trained to deal with biological, chemical or radioactive substances and in case if the people are contaminated the NIFRS can undertake mass decontamination.
• Police – Mostly the PSNI is focused on coordination of the other organizations during the major incidents. As most of the services their aim is to protect and save life in collaboration with other organizations and preserve the scene to protect the evidence in case of future investigation of the crime. When the first aims are possibly achieved the police establishing outer and inner cordons and protect them which helps the other responders to carry out their duties without any issues. In some cases if necessary PSNI will cooperate with the Highways Agency to set the diversions which will keep the public away from the accident. The latest part of the PSNI duty at the major incident when the people are safe is investigation which is based on the witness statements, gather the evidence, secure the personal property and identification of the fatalities requested by the HM Coroner.
• Voluntary organizations - Not all of the volunteer organizations are able to help with planning and responding to the major incident but some of them are trained enough to provide essential help required by emergency responders. The most active and skilled voluntary organizations are Saint John Ambulance where the staff posses required licenses such as category C1, D1 and the DSA license to drive the ambulance on blue lights, have the first aid courses passed so they are able to give the first aid to the casualties and some of the members are doctors which have huge knowledge and skills which allows them to respond on the same way as the ambulance under the command of the NIAS command. The British Red Cross is able to provide the psychological help to the families of the casualties and could bring some food that might be required for example where people were affected by flooding and have no food. In case of the difficult mountain or cave areas there would be needed a help of Mountain and cave rescue which are experts in their kind of responding to emergency.
• Local authorities – The role of the local authorities is to coordinate the response of the emergency services within their area. In their responsibilities is to ensure that the emergency responders have sufficient people and equipment to respond to the incident with full effectiveness and to provide temporary rest centers and accommodation for the casualties less affected by the major incident.

Explain how UK agencies involved in a specific major incident worked together in accordance with their legal duties: Explain the role of the organisations involved in planning for major incidents.

During major incidents it is important that responding agencies communicate and work together in order to effectively and efficiently deal with the incident this can be done in the following ways.

Liaison Officers

These officer are the member of the public services who are responsible for communicating with the other services as well as and sharing and simulating information between them.

The officers coordinate training days where the public service train together in order to improve their performance for the future and keep them fit for the future.

Training Days

Training days where a simulated incident takes place allows the service to train and prepare for major incidents and highlight any problems or areas that they need to improve.

Emergency Plans

Their plans are a serious and clear instruction on how responding agencies respond to a major incidents, each agency will have future plans on how to respond to different types of major incidents. Liaison officer’s form each service will come together in conjunction with the local government to prepare a universal contingency plan that all service will work form.

Command and control procedures:

Command and control networks are in placed so that the services effectively communicate and control the situations

Civil Contingencies Act 2004:

Civil Contingencies Act 2004 is an act parliament of the United Kingdom to ensures that all services lease with each other during their duty.

This act establishes a coherent Framework for emergency planning and responses to incidents on a local and national scale all categories of responders work in conjunction with this act to ensure they fulfill their legal duties and help each other. During the major innocent they use command and control to communicate with each other so they can do their best job.

The command structure is split into three Tiers: Gold, Silver, Bronze.

Gold Strategic Command

This control and command supervise the operation. This command operate in the gold command suite away from the scene, they support silvers decisions who are on the ground and formulate contingency plans to handle the incident

Gold commanders also are responsible for the allocation of personnel and resources.

They also approve silvers plans and ideas on how to resolve the incident.

Silver Tactical Command:

Silver command are the actual commanders of the major incident. Police service usually fulfills this role. Silver is responsible for implementing the strategic command recommendations and orders. The silver commands staff officers are responsible for constantly providing the gold command staff officer with up-to-date information.

Silver create a plan and delegates instructions down to bronze commanders, they also contact with other services liaison officer to ensure that they have a constant update of information. They are also responsible for media relations and for the cordon around the incident area.

Bronze Operational Command

Bronze command is an operation command element that is responsible for overseeing a particular task, bronze commanders implement silvers plan.

Examples of bronze command elements:

• Incident scene
• Evacuation
• Medical Questioning
• Collecting Details
• Traffic Support

These commanders are the most hands on role during the incident that are in constant communication with silver command and have constant communication with each other to effective achieve the task and operation.

Inter-agency planning and communication is important when the public services respond to a major incident it allows the public service to respond efficiently and effectively to incidents. Planning and preparation can result in faster response times.

Planning can also ensure that the public services are working to the same goals.It can also highlight any future problems that could occur as well as identify areas where public services need to improve to effectively respond and need to look at their weakness and mistake so that they do make it in the future.

It can also prevent the serious injuries and even death in the prompt and well planned response to incidents.

The Importance of Inter-Agency

If the public services do not have Inter-agency planning and communication would not be able to effectively respond to emergency incidents due to poor planning and preparation.

Poor planning can result poor response times which can result in the serious injuries and even deaths of those involved in the incident. They would not be working towards to the same goals which can make it difficult and the operation slowing down the response to the incident. They will be not prepared for the incident and they will not highlight their problem. They can occur in the future and there will be not improvement in their performance which can result in the serious injuries and even deaths of those involved in the incident. If they don't have good communication between nothing will learn from the past incident because of the poor relations and communications between services.

This is why Inter-agency planning and communication is important when the public services respond to a major incident, allows the public service to respond efficiently and effectively to incidents which will save people's lives and prevent any further escalation of the incident.