“What then are the co-responding duties referred to in the declarations sought? Firefighters necessarily have to deal on a regular basis with persons who, as victims of fires or other incidents, such as road traffic accidents, have suffered serious and potentially life-threatening injury. If first on the scene of such an emergency, firefighters administer such first aid and basic medical interventions as they can pending the arrival of ambulance crews or paramedics whose training and equipment enable them to provide more extensive medical support to the victim. “In order to be able to provide these first tier medical interventions firefighters are trained and regularly retrained in basic first aid and related procedures including the administration of oxygen. As part of their duties, firefighters carry defibrillators for use at such scenes. “Co-responding seeks to build on this training and the experience thus gained. Calls for purely medical assistance from members of the public are routed to the ambulance service. Calls are classified as category A, B or C. Category A calls are those where the symptoms reported to ambulance control indicate that the patient's condition is or may be immediately life-threatening. In particular, though not exclusively, this refers to emergency calls reporting cardiac arrest, respiratory arrest, unconsciousness, chest pain, choking and collapse. “Government targets require the ambulance service to attend 75 per cent of such calls within eight minutes of receipt, the window of time during which it may be possible by medical intervention to keep the patient alive and to permit further treatment of the patient. Where such a call is received by the ambulance service and it appears to ambulance control that a fire appliance and crew could reach the patient within the critical eight minute window but an ambulance could not, either because of the relative location of the fire appliance and the ambulance or because the available ambulance is in use on other calls then the Fire and Rescue Service may be called out to attend the patient in addition to an ambulance being sent as soon as possible. Once on the scene firefighters will give initial medical support until the ambulance arrives, such as administering oxygen for breathing difficulties or using a defibrillator for cardiac arrest. “The initial training involved before a firefighter is equipped to undertake this task is a day initially with six monthly refreshers. The evidence shows that corresponding may be life saving and has saved lives in the areas where such schemes have been accepted by firefighters and put into effect. “The Fire Authorities have sought to impose an obligation on their employees to participate in co-respondent schemes. They maintain that their employees are contractually obliged to do so. Their case is that co-responding is within the terms of the national agreement and the Role Maps and role descriptions drawn up in implementation of the national agreement, and that instructions to undertake it are therefore within the scope of an employer’s authority to give reasonable instructions to its employees.”
“They maintain that such duties are outside the scope of the contractual obligations. If the Fire Authorities wish them to undertake such duties then they submit the existing terms and conditions of employment will have to be changed. The price for those changes in terms of new protocols, working practices, and perhaps remuneration for additional duties must await negotiation between the fire authorities and the FBU.”
“refine our responses to incidents other than fires”
“I have seen and heard the FBU negotiators. They are, in my judgment, men who read small print and are alive to any disadvantage that might accrue to the membership. I am quite satisfied that the settlement of the pay dispute did not concede the issue on co-responding. If they had conceded that issue there would, in my judgment, have been a clear reference to that fact in the Grey Book.”
“The role of local authority Fire and Rescue Services in the United Kingdom is the reduction of loss of life, injury, economic and social cost arising from fire and other hazards.”
“FF3.1 Conduct a search to locate life involved in incidents. This element concerns your ability to search for people who are in some form of difficulty or danger through involvement in an incident. This may include searches in a range of locations at hazardous environments, usually as a team member. "FF3.2 Rescue life involved in incidents. This element concerns your ability to move endangered people to a place of safety. This may include extrication using relevant equipment, releasing a trapped person, moving conscious and unconscious people to a place of safety. You may also be involved in the rescue of trapped animals. "FF3.3 Provide treatment to casualties. This element concerns your ability to administer immediate treatment to casualties, to assist with stabilisation of the casualty's condition and preservation of life. The level of treatment you provide will be within the limits of the training you have received in line with your organisational policies and will aim to prepare casualties for handover to appropriate agencies. This will include basic life support and casualty handling. "FF3.4 Support people involved in rescue operations. This element concerns your ability to provide both physical emotional support to people directly and indirectly involved in a rescue incident. This will include reassuring and comforting people, protecting their privacy and dignity, maintaining security at the scene of an incident and liaison with other agencies. This element includes dealing with deceased.”
“The unit refers, in my judgment, to the role of the fire fighter when he or she attends an incident at which the fire and rescue service is best fitted to act as the primary agency to save and preserve endangered life. The role under FF3.1 is to find the person or people involved in the incident. Having done so, the role under unit FF3.2 is to rescue the person found, whether from a burning house or the crashed car or otherwise. Under FF3.3 the role is to treat the person rescued. Finally, FF3.4 identifies the role supporting those involved in the search, rescue and treatment operations. That was how the unit struck me when I was first introduced to it on the opening morning of the trial. After four days of evidence and argument I remain firmly of that view.”
“An employee was expected to adapt to new methods and techniques in performing his duties provided the employer arranged for him to receive the necessary training of the new skills and the nature of the work did not alter so radically that it was outside the contractual obligations of the employee. But it was a question of fact whether the introduction of the new methods and techniques altered the nature of the work to such a degree that it was no longer the work that the employee had agreed to perform under the terms of his contract and that, although the introduction of COP changed the way the plaintiffs performed their duties, they were still administering PAYE and performing the duties of tax officers which, in any event, could be varied under the terms of the their contract.”
“As it seems to me, the distinction between Cresswell and the present case is that in Cresswell it is the method by which the work was to be performed was to be changed, not the actual nature of the work itself. In corresponding, the Fire and Rescue Services are not acting as fire fighters at all. There is no incident calling for their special skills and qualities in the field of fire and rescue. There is no fire, there is no accident, there is no hazard, there is no missing person and there is no rescue. They are deployed because they can get to the medical emergency quickly and have a raised level of skill in performing medical interventions. I have no doubt that it is a very valuable and worthwhile use of their expertise but it is essentially the job of a paramedic or an ambulance crew.”
“No one could listen to the evidence in this case, particularly that of Dr Yvonne Owen, the clinical director of Lincolnshire Integrated Voluntary Emergency Service, and Mr Marwood of the East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust without recognising the importance of co-responder schemes. They are crucial to better survival rates from patients sustaining cardiac arrests in the community. The FBU acknowledges as much. If I had been able to construe the contractual documents to require participation in such schemes by fire fighters, I should have unhesitatingly have done so. The benefits are abundant and are clear. I am, however, constrained by the cannons of construction on the facts as they are presented to me. “No such constraints bind the FBU. I express the earnest hope that there will be no triumphalism after this judgment. Rather I hope that there will begin yet further determined efforts to find a way in which the benefits of co-responding by the Fire and Rescue Services can be achieved in a spirit of co-operation between all parties. If that does not happen, not only will the country be poorer for it but the reputation rightly enjoyed by fire fighters for their courage, bravery, skill and selflessness will be inevitably tarnished. That would be much to be regretted.”