Operational excellence -
being the best we can be
To respond to emergencies effectively we need our stations in the best possible locations with the right number of people, at the right time, with the right skills and tactical options available to them. Information gathered after an emergency is used to improve procedures, equipment and training. Customer feedback is used wherever possible, to improve our response in the future.
What we have been developing is a better focus on ensuring people’s needs are at the centre of our response and how we evaluate if we are good. We aim to reduce harm in every situation through work during and after the incident. This starts with our call-handling team and ends with post-incident care, advice and support, and learning from incidents through debriefs.
We are introducing an approach, known as the Integrated Learning and Assurance Model, to ensure we have an effective, assertive, and safe operational workforce, that has been tested as competent, and is licenced to respond to a variety of emergencies and situations that affect our customers whilst keeping our sites in Kent and Medway safer. This approach pulls together all the elements of learning and assurance exercises to deliver an integrated approach to our professional practice. It also integrates our work in high risk sites and our requirements to meet Section 7.2(d) of the Fire Services Act in a cohesive way. We want to help individuals maintain confidence in their skills.
The elements of the new model are:
- Learning from incidents, exercises and training events
- Social and blended learning
- Core refresher training which is maintained as a training record as part of a regular assessment of competence to practice
- Station based training against the current 26 National Operational Guidance scenarios
- Station based activity such as home fire safety visits, tactical assessment visits, formal exercising and testing
- Service-wide assurance exercises
- Conferences on new research and ways of working available to all and continuous professional development
The model is part of our drive to demonstrate we are a professional organisation and is supported by initiatives such as membership of the Institute of Fire Engineers and access to online learning for operational teams. Relevant qualifications, continuous professional development and professional memberships for building safety, customer safety and corporate colleagues with use of online learning are vital to the overall governance and performance of the Service. Our priority operationally for the next four years is consolidating all the above into day to day business.