North West Fire Control

North West Fire Control (NWFC) is the emergency control room for Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service (LFRS).  Its core functions for LFRS are to:

· Receive emergency calls via 999 system, other agencies or alarm receiving centres.

· Mobilises appropriate resources to incidents in line with LFRS’s mobilising procedures.

· Support on-going incidents

· Manage resource availability (standby manoeuvres).

NWFC will carry out Emergency Call Management (ECM) prompts provided by LFRS to determine whether an attendance is required for specific incidents and will signpost calls to other appropriate agencies where it is determined that the fire service will not be attending.

In addition, NWFC will support LFRS with:

· Notification of intruder alarms at fire service premises.

· Notification of planned events.

· Notification and implementation of special mobilising arrangements.

· Road closures

· Passing additional risking information for specific addresses.

· The passing of accident or near miss information.

· Provide a supplementary media statement for specific incidents.

NWFC has also absorbed through its current staffing model the additional calls from North West Ambulance Service (NWAS), for request to gain entry to premises for medical emergencies.  This is a tri-partite Memorandum of Understanding with LFRS, NWAS and Lancashire Constabulary.

Quarter 2 (2024-25)

Emergency Calls

Incoming emergency calls for LFRS for Quarter 2 total 6,317.  This is almost 1,500 less emergency calls than Quarter 2 the previous year.  These figures have to be caveated with the following:

· NWFC can not assure that this year’s figure are totally accurate due to an issue with the data retrieval software.  Audits of reports have highlighted missing data, which have been reported to system engineers and escalated through their management controls.  NWFC have utilised other software to extract the data and will carry out further analysis when there is confirmation that the data retrieval software is reporting accurately and will look at previous data and supply to fire and rescue services.

This has been reported to each fire and rescue service and His Majesty’s Inspection for Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS).

· The Summer of 2024 didn’t see the usual spike in calls for grass and wildfires.

Admin Calls

NWFC also receives administrative calls for all services including LFRS for such items as a request for support from crews at incidents or updating resource availability, e.g. training, exercising, defective.

In quarter 2, NWFC received 6196 admin calls, which is almost identical to the same period last year.

Again, the information is caveated with the issue regarding the data retrieval software.

Response to Fires

NWFC has a target of mobilising resources to fires with in 90 seconds on average.  In July and August 2024, these target exceeded (95 seconds).

Analysing the reasons for this increase in call mobilisation times has highlighted the following information.

· Operating in a period of fallback in August due to loss of the main mobilising Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system.  During business continuity events, tried and tested fallback methods of working are implemented.  These, however require a manual process when there is a loss of CAD, and mobilising resources is not as fast as normal which impacts on the mobilising times.

This issue has been highlighted and reported to fire and rescue services and further control measures have been implemented to ensure the reason for the loss of the mobilising system on this occasion is not repeated.

· NWFC has highlighted with its Board of Directors, an issue with retention of staff.  This is not just a NWFC issue, but is reflected in all fire control rooms, all emergency control rooms and according to the CIPD is a national trend for organisations.

To replace the staff, NWFC must recruit and train new operators, which takes approximately two years to get them to a level of competency.  The relatively high number of inexperienced staff impacts the call mobilisation times.

NWFC has completed a capacity review of it operating model and moving forward with a plan to help improve retention.

It should be noted that the average mobilising times for September 2024 improved to 87 seconds, which is below our target.

Response to Special Service Calls

NWFC does not have a target for mobilising to special service calls but does monitor them to identify trends.

Mobilisation to these calls increased in Quarter 2.  Analysis of reason for this are similar to the two reasons above for fires. 

In addition, NWFC has a new People Development and Assurance Programme (PDAP) in place, which is designed to improve the skill sets of our operators.  Part of this has been adopting the newly issued NFCC Control National Operational Guidance, which often requires additional call handling questions to determine whether a response is required and ensure the safety of proceeding crews and callers.