COVID-19 inspection: Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service

Published on: 22 January 2021

Letter information

From:
Zoë Billingham BA Hons (Oxon)
Her Majesty’s Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services

To:
Gavin Tomlinson, Chief Fire Officer
Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service

Councillor Kevin Buttery, Chair
Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Authority

Sent on:
22 January 2021

Introduction

In August 2020, we were commissioned by the Home Secretary to inspect how fire and rescue services in England are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. This letter from HMI Zoe Billingham to Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service sets out our assessment of the effectiveness of the service’s response to the pandemic.

The pandemic is a global event that has affected everyone and every organisation. Fire and rescue services have had to continue to provide a service to the public and, like every other public service, have had to do so within the restrictions imposed.

For this inspection, we were asked by the Home Secretary to consider what is working well and what is being learned; how the fire sector is responding to the COVID-19 crisis; how fire services are dealing with the problems they face; and what changes are likely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. We recognise that the pandemic is not over and as such this inspection concerns the service’s initial response.

I am grateful for the positive and constructive way your service engaged with our inspection. I am also very grateful to your service for the positive contribution you have made to your community during the pandemic. We inspected your service between 19 and 30 October 2020. This letter summarises our findings.

In relation to your service, the chair of Derbyshire Local Resilience Forum (LRF) declared a major incident on 18 March 2020.

In summary, while the service continued to provide most of its core statutory functions, it didn’t offer the level of prevention activities required because staff were deployed elsewhere in the service.

Positively, the availability of on-call firefighters and fire appliances increased, and response times improved during the pandemic. The service was able to continue with most of its protection work, using desktop reviews and other forms of remote working. However, the service reduced the amount of prevention activity it did, stopping most of its face-to-face safe and well visits. It did offer safe and well consultations by telephone to those at highest risk.

Additional support was given to the community during the first phase of the pandemic. This support included driving ambulances, and delivering pharmaceuticals and food. It used its wholetime firefighters to respond to emergencies. These firefighters also helped to deliver pharmaceuticals to hospitals, GP surgeries and people who were shielding.

Resources were well managed, and the service’s financial position was largely unaffected, especially as reserves didn’t have to be used to cover extra costs. The service was able to respond quickly to staff absences. And it implemented work to make its control room more resilient. The service communicated well with its staff throughout the pandemic, including on issues relating to staff wellbeing. It also made sure all staff had the resources they needed to do their jobs effectively, including providing extra IT and putting in place new flexible working arrangements. The service is continuing to use its on-call workforce more effectively to provide community-focused activity, such as support to the ambulance service.

We recognise that the arrangements for managing the pandemic may carry on for some time, and that the service is now planning for the future. In order to be as efficient and effective as possible, Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service should focus on the following areas:

  1. It should determine how it will adopt, for the longer term, the new and innovative ways of working introduced during the pandemic, to secure lasting improvements.
  2. It should consider how well its plans allow it to maintain all its statutory functions during an extended event such as the pandemic. If needed, it should adjust its plans to make sure it can do so.
  3. It should determine what steps it could take to align itself more closely with the National Fire Chiefs Council’s (NFCC’s) guidance on prevention.

Preparing for the pandemic

In line with good governance, the service had a pandemic flu plan and business continuity plans in place that were in date. These plans were activated.

The plans were detailed enough to enable the service to make an effective initial response, but understandably, they didn’t anticipate and mitigate all the risks presented by COVID-19.

The service has reviewed its plans to reflect the changing situation and what it has learned during the pandemic. However, the plans concentrate on maintaining response, and don’t describe how prevention and protection can continue.

The plans now include further detail on symptoms, reporting arrangements, degradation, social distancing, making premises ‘COVID-secure’, remote working, mutual aid and supply of personal protective equipment (PPE).

Fulfilling statutory functions

The main functions of a fire and rescue service are fire firefighting, promoting fire safety through prevention and protection (making sure building owners comply with fire safety legislation), rescuing people in road traffic collisions, and responding to emergencies.

The service has continued to provide some of its core statutory functions, namely response and protection, throughout the pandemic in line with advice from the NFCC. But it didn’t provide the amount of prevention activity that was needed.

Response

The service told us that between 1 April and 30 June 2020 it attended broadly the same number of incidents as it did during the same period in 2019.

The availability of wholetime fire engines was better than it was during the same period the previous year. We were told that this was the result of lower sickness levels among wholetime staff.

The service introduced a different geographic response model as a temporary measure during this period. It did this to improve resilience and local decision-making. This helped to reduce the risk of staff catching and transmitting the virus, and made sure that the service was able to quickly respond to calls.

The availability of on-call crewed fire engines was better during the pandemic than it was during the same period the previous year. Between 1 April and 30 June 2020, the service’s average on-call fire engine availability was 92.6 percent compared with 75.6 percent during the same period in 2019. This was as a result of an increased number of on-call firefighters being available to respond to emergencies because of being furloughed from their primary employment.

The service told us that its average response time to fires improved during the pandemic compared with the same period in 2019. Attendance times for the first engine improved. Where a second engine was needed, attendance times also improved, although they were slower than the service’s response target. This was despite lower sickness levels, better fire engine availability and less road traffic during this period. This may not be reflected in official statistics recently published by the Home Office, because services don’t all collect and calculate their data the same way.

The service had good arrangements in place to make sure that its control room had enough staff during the pandemic.

This included effective resilience arrangements, including training more staff for control room roles and isolating the control room to reduce the risk of sickness.

Prevention

The NFCC issued guidance explaining how services should maintain a risk-based approach to continuing prevention activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The service didn’t adopt this guidance.

The service stopped conducting the safe and well visits that it would normally undertake. It reviewed which individuals and groups it considered to be at an increased risk from fire as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, it identified individuals who were at the highest risk from fire and carried out more than 300 telephone interviews with them.

The service decided to stop offering face-to-face safe and well visits. Initially, this was to minimise the risk of infection. Later, the service used its prevention staff elsewhere, including to help deliver essentials (such as pharmaceuticals and food) to vulnerable people. In the first three months of the pandemic, the service made more than 23,000 deliveries. Community Safety staff also befriended vulnerable people by telephone. While we welcome the different ways in which the service supported its community, these shouldn’t have been at the expense of its statutory fire safety responsibilities, including stopping its safe and well visits.

Later in the pandemic, the service introduced the option of a safe and well visit by telephone to those at highest risk. It also introduced other options, including delivering smoke alarms along with other essential supplies.

Protection

The NFCC issued guidance on how to continue protection activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. This included maintaining a risk-based approach, completing desktop audits and issuing enforcement notices electronically. Activity included carrying out audits on those premises that are at the greatest risk from fire. The service broadly adopted this guidance.

The service didn’t review how it defines premises as high risk during the pandemic. However, it recognised issues (such as more people working from home, different evacuation plans from care homes, and storage of hand gel) as presenting changes in risk from fire. It used this information in its protection work.

The service conducted fewer fire safety audits than it would normally undertake. It decided to mostly stop face-to-face fire safety audits and enforcement work. It introduced risk-based desktop appraisals instead of face-to-face audits to minimise face-to-face contact between members of staff and the public. It completed a small number of face-to-face audits where necessary.

The service continued to issue alteration notices, enforcement notices and prohibition notices, and took part in three virtual court cases. It also continued to respond to statutory building control consultations.

It also introduced other measures to reduce social contact, such as completing more desktop assessments, sending and receiving still images and/or video electronically, using video conferencing/live streaming, offering better information on its website, reducing the number of staff carrying out visits, travelling separately when doing face-to-face audits, and using PPE.

Staff health and safety and wellbeing

Staff wellbeing was a clear priority for the service during the pandemic. It proactively identified wellbeing problems and responded to any concerns and further needs. Senior leaders actively promoted wellbeing services and encouraged staff to discuss any worries they had.

Most staff survey respondents told us that they could access services to support their mental wellbeing if needed. Support put in place for staff included occupational health, counselling, peer support and access to external resources such as an employee assistance programme.

More could have been done to identify and address the specific needs of staff members most at risk from COVID-19, including those from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background and those with underlying health problems. These members of staff didn’t get the tailored support that they may have needed.

Wellbeing best practice was also shared with other services. The service doesn’t yet intend to discuss with its staff how it should plan for the potential longer-term effects of COVID-19 on its workforce.

The service made sure that firefighters were competent to do their work during the pandemic. The service suspended fitness testing, but it put measures in place to resolve any outstanding tests and support firefighters so that they could safely maintain their fitness during the pandemic.

The service assessed the risks of new work to make sure its staff had the skills and equipment needed to work safely and effectively.

The service provided its workforce with suitable PPE on time, and made sure that it achieved value for money. But it didn’t participate in the national fire sector scheme to procure PPE because it had enough stocks throughout this period.

Staff absence

Absences have decreased compared with the same period in 2019. The number of days lost due to sickness absence between 1 April and 30 June 2020 decreased by 30 percent compared with the same period in 2019.

The service updated the absence policy so that it could better manage staff wellbeing and health and safety, and make more effective decisions on how to allocate work. This included information about recording absences, self isolation, testing, training for managers and returning to work after a COVID-19 infection. Data was routinely collected on the numbers of staff either absent, self isolating or working from home.

Staff engagement

Most staff survey respondents told us that the service provided regular and relevant communication to all staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. This included regular virtual team meetings, written correspondence and staff one-to-ones with a manager or equivalent about wellbeing and health and safety.

The service intends to maintain changes it has made to its ways of working in response to COVID-19, including working from home, and holding meetings and giving training virtually, as part of its usual processes.

Working with others, and making changes locally

To protect communities, fire and rescue service staff were encouraged to carry out extra roles beyond their core duties. This was to support other local blue light services and other public service providers that were experiencing high levels of demand, and to offer other support to its communities.

The service carried out the following new activities: driving ambulances; helping vulnerable people; testing face fitting for masks; delivering pharmaceuticals to hospitals, GP surgeries and people who were shielding; and storing and distributing PPE. Staff were also trained in the movement of bodies, but ultimately, they didn’t need to do this.

A national ‘tripartite agreement’ was put in place to include the new activities that firefighters could carry out during the pandemic. The agreement was between the NFCC, National Employers and the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), and specified what new roles firefighters could provide during the pandemic. Each service then consulted locally on the specific work it had been asked to support, to agree how to address any health and safety requirements, including risk assessments. If public sector partners requested further support from services with additional roles that were outside the tripartite agreement, the specifics would need to be agreed nationally before the work could begin.

The service consulted locally with the FBU to implement the tripartite agreement.

All of the new work done by the service under the tripartite agreement was agreed on time for it to start promptly and in line with the request from the partner agency.

There were extra requests for work by partner agencies that fell outside the tripartite agreement, including delivering pharmaceuticals to GPs, hospitals and people who were shielding.

This work was agreed and undertaken on time and in line with the request from the partner agency.

All new work, including that done under the tripartite agreement, was risk-assessed and complied with the health and safety requirements.

All activities to support other organisations during this period were monitored and reviewed. The service has identified which to continue. For example, it has continued to give support to the ambulance service.

Local resilience forum

To keep the public safe, fire and rescue services work with other organisations to assess the risk of an emergency and to maintain plans for responding to one. To do so, the service should be an integrated and active member of its LRF. Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service is a member of Derbyshire LRF.

The service was an active member of the LRF during the pandemic. The service told us that the LRF’s arrangements enabled the service to fully engage in the multi-agency response.

As part of the LRF’s response to COVID-19, the service chaired the tactical command group and was a member of the strategic co-ordination group. The service was able to allocate suitably qualified staff to participate in these groups without affecting its core duties.

Use of resources

The service’s financial position hasn’t yet been significantly affected by the pandemic.

The service has made robust and realistic calculations of the extra costs it has faced during the pandemic. At the time of our inspection its main extra costs were ICT, additional PPE and cleaning, and providing drivers to the ambulance service. It fully understands the effect this will have on its previously agreed budget and anticipated savings. Where possible, it has exploited opportunities to make savings during this period and used them to mitigate any financial risks it has identified.

The service received £960,000 of extra government funding to support its response. At the time of our inspection it had spent only £240,000, which is about a quarter of this money. The service spent it on on-call staff who were seconded to the ambulance service, support to the LRF, ICT, PPE, and cleaning supplies. It has shown how it used this income efficiently, and that it mitigated against the financial risks that arose during this period.

The service didn’t use any of its reserves to meet the extra costs that arose during this period.

When used, overtime was managed appropriately. The service made sure that its staff who worked overtime had enough rest between shifts.

Ways of working

The service changed how it operates during the pandemic. For example, it introduced working from home, and virtual meetings and training. It had the necessary IT to support remote working where appropriate. Where new IT was needed, it made sure that procurement processes achieved good value for money.

The service could quickly implement changes to how it operates, including introducing new geographic areas for response, and remote working for many staff. This allowed its staff to work flexibly and efficiently during the pandemic. The service plans to consider how to adapt its flexible working arrangements to make sure it has the right provisions in place to support a modern workforce.

The service has had positive feedback from staff on how they were engaged with during the pandemic. As a result, the service plans to adopt these changes into its usual procedures and consider how they can be developed further to help promote a sustainable change to its working culture.

The service made good use of the resources and guidance available from the NFCC to support its workforce planning and help with its work under the tripartite agreement.

Staffing

The service had enough resources available to respond to the level of demand during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to reallocate resources where necessary to support the work of its partner organisations.

Arrangements put in place to monitor staff performance across the service were effective. This meant the service could be sure its staff were making the best contribution that they reasonably could during this period. Extra capacity was identified and reassigned to support other areas of the service and other organisations.

As well as performing their statutory functions, wholetime firefighters volunteered for extra activities, including those under the tripartite agreement and other activities such as delivery of pharmaceuticals.

The on-call workforce took on extra responsibilities covering some of the roles agreed as part of the tripartite agreement, including driving ambulances and/or the shifts of absent wholetime staff.

Governance of the service’s response

Each fire and rescue service is overseen by a fire and rescue authority. There are several different governance arrangements in place across England, and the size of the authority varies between services. Each authority ultimately has the same function: to set the service’s priorities and budget and make sure that the budget is spent wisely.

The chair of Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Authority was actively engaged in discussions with the chief fire officer and the service on the service’s ability to discharge its statutory functions during the pandemic.

Members of the fire and rescue authority and the service maintained a constructive relationship. The service regularly updated fire and rescue authority members about how it was responding to the pandemic and the extra activities of its staff. This included work carried out as part of the tripartite arrangements.

During the pandemic, members of the fire and rescue authority were kept informed of decisions made by the chief fire officer. The authority reduced its oversight because it recognised the critical nature of this incident, and the need for the chief fire officer to be able to quickly adapt the service’s response, to effectively support its staff and communities. The authority maintained regular communication with the chief fire officer and received the service’s written briefings.

Looking to the future

During the pandemic, fire and rescue services were able to adapt quickly to new ways of working. This meant they could respond to emergencies and take on a greater role in the community by supporting other blue light services and partner agencies. It is now essential that services use their experiences during COVID-19 as a platform for lasting reform and modernisation.

Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service has improved its collaboration with partners, particularly the ambulance service, and it is supporting these organisations in the longer term. The service also transformed its use of technology, and is considering how virtual platforms and remote working can help it become more effective and efficient. It changed the geographic response model during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide better resilience. The learning from this has informed a more permanent change in the way the service organises itself.

Good practice and what worked was shared with other services through the NFCC. This includes a COVID-19 screening questionnaire for visits to premises, additional support to on-call staff who were financially affected by the pandemic, and policy changes in the control room.

Next steps

We propose restarting our second round of effectiveness and efficiency fire and rescue inspections in spring 2021, when we may follow up some of our findings.

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COVID-19 inspection: Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service