home » about us » hampshire fire and rescue service plan » our achievements
home » about us » hampshire fire and rescue service plan » our achievements
The Service
Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service Plan...
2010 has been a particularly successful year for us. We are working hard to be the best fire and rescue service in the country. Our achievements bring us closer to that vision.
The Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team has been to one major earthquake and has been involved in one major international training exercise, which was held in Fort Widley, Hampshire.
In January 2010 the service made a significant contribution to the International Search and Rescue team that was sent from the UK to Haiti. Our USAR staff were in charge of the entire UK team in Haiti. Three members of staff went to Haiti, including one medic.
In September 2010 we hosted the field exercise part of the EU-funded Orion project. This was the largest EU civil-protection exercise ever attempted. The aim was to test how international USAR teams would be used in the UK to help with a major disaster that had overstretched UK resources. Six international USAR teams (from Italy, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Spain and United Arab Emirates) and four UK USAR teams were kept busy for several days.
We gained valuable experience from the exercise by adding our own objectives and resources. Staff from every station in the county took part at some stage. Other agencies also took advantage of this unique opportunity to test how their plans and staff would cope in an unusual event.
Co-responding (working with the ambulance service on medical emergencies) During 2009-2010 our co-responders attended 9200 emergency calls in partnership with South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS). This partnership dramatically increases the chances of survival of a patient in a rural area suffering from a life-threatening injury or illness by providing immediate medical care.
The co-responding role has brought benefits to staff in the 18 fire stations across the service where it has been introduced. These benefits include extra medical and driver training and experience in dealing with incidents at no cost to us. The co-responder agreement successfully and efficiently supports our communities in emergency situations. Co-responding is helping to make people in rural areas more aware of our work and is making a positive contribution to our aim of making Hampshire safer.
We hosted the United Kingdom Rescue Organisation (UKRO) rescue challenge in September 2010.
The rescue challenge included three events – the ‘Rope Rescue’ challenge, the ‘Trauma’ challenge and the ‘Vehicle Extrication’ challenge. We also held a vehicle workshop to give people information on large goods vehicles (LGV), hybrid vehicles (vehicles which use both a fuel-based and a rechargeable source of energy), new vehicle technologies and the materials used in vehicles. The event saw 46 fire and rescue services from across the country and four fire and rescue services from around the world taking part.
We continue to improve because of the commitment and achievements of our employees. Following on from our Investors in People (IIP) accreditation in 2007, we achieved further recognition in December 2010 when we received the IIP silver award for the way we manage our staff and our overall performance. The silver award confirms that we are continuing to make good progress and places us comfortably in the top 5% of over 35,000 recognised IIP-accredited organisations in the UK. We remain committed to making further improvements.
The Hampshire Arson Task Force is a joint venture between us and Hampshire Constabulary. The task force provides specialist support and guidance to staff from both services involved in investigating deliberate and serious fires across the county.
During the year 2009 to 2010, the Arson Task Force investigated 328 fires. In 51% of cases these investigations have led to a suspect being arrested. And 82% of these suspects were convicted and sent to prison.
