COVID-19 inspection: Kent Fire and Rescue Service
Contents
Print this document
Letter information
From:
Zoë Billingham BA Hons (Oxon)
Her Majesty’s Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services
To:
Ann Millington, Chief Executive
Kent Fire and Rescue Service
Councillor Nick Chard, Chair
Kent and Medway 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 Kent 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 7 and 18 September 2020. This letter summarises our findings.
In relation to your service, Kent Police declared a major incident on 24 March 2020, which was ratified by Kent’s Local Resilience Forum (LRF) shortly thereafter.
In summary, the service has adapted and responded to the pandemic effectively. A pandemic flu exercise in 2018 (Operation Domino) simulated the challenges that COVID-19 has brought to fire and rescue services. The learning from that exercise has been instrumental in the service being able to adapt quickly to the crisis, not least the success of the transition to IT-enabled home working.
A constructive relationship between senior leaders and union/staff association representatives has meant the service was able to move quickly to provide a new range of services outside of normal core functions. For more than a decade, the service has had arrangements in place to respond to medical emergencies for South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SECAmb). As the pandemic intensified, the service increased its level of commitment to SECAmb. Firefighters have been trained to drive ambulances should the need arise and the service is providing ongoing logistics support to SECAmb. The service also supported the health, social care and charity sectors with the supply and fitting of personal protective equipment (PPE), foodbank distribution, and the delivery of meals for Age UK.
Senior leaders communicate well with frontline staff, who believe that their wellbeing and safety is taken seriously. A national logistics hub was also created to supply other fire services and service providers with clinical PPE.
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. To be as efficient and effective as possible, Kent Fire and Rescue Service should focus on the following areas:
- 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.
- It should consider whether the shared plans it uses, such as the Kent Resilience Forum (KRF) pandemic flu plan, are comprehensive enough to meet the specific needs of the service and its community. If not, the service should make sure the plans change to reflect these needs.
- It should determine what steps it could take to align itself more closely with the National Fire Chiefs Council’s (NFCC) guidance on protection.
Preparing for the pandemic
To manage the pandemic, the service activated its business continuity plans, along with a pandemic flu plan it jointly developed with KRF. All plans had been reviewed and were up to date. The service’s business continuity plans make provision for an unforeseen shortfall of staff. This is whether the shortfall is caused by a pandemic or another unforeseen event, for example, adverse weather.
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 and KRF have reviewed the plans to reflect the changing situation and what has been learned during the pandemic.
The business continuity plans include details of the services that will be maintained should there be an abnormal loss of staff. These are referred to as ‘degradation arrangements’. They cover prevention, protection, response and support functions. In response to the pandemic, a sterile ‘fall back’ facility has been incorporated into the 999-control room, risk assessments have been developed for ‘new’ services and ‘new ways of working’ and training methods have been adapted to limit physical contact.
Fulfilling statutory functions
The main functions of a fire and rescue service are 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.
In the main, the service has adapted its services in line with guidance from the NFCC. It has continued to respond to calls from the public and attend emergencies. In relation to fire protection, the service temporarily suspended safety audits, contrary to national guidance.
This decision was made on the premise that remote audits would undermine the integrity of its fire safety programme. This service’s position followed legal advice, which it shared with the NFCC.
Response
The service told us it attended fewer incidents between 1 April and 30 June 2020 than it did during the same period in 2019.
The overall availability of fire engines was better during the pandemic than it was during the same period in 2019. Between 1 April and 30 June 2020, the service’s average overall fire engine availability was 73.7 percent compared with 58.7 percent during the same period in 2019. We were told that this was as a result of lower sickness levels among crews and an increased number of on-call firefighters being available to respond to emergencies as a result of being furloughed from their primary employment. Less training also meant that more firefighters were available for shifts.
The service didn’t change its crewing models or shift patterns during this period.
The service told us that its average response time to fires improved during the pandemic compared with the same period in 2019. This was due to an increased availability of fire engines crewed by on-call firefighters. 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 enough call handlers were available to receive 999 calls and dispatch fire crews to incidents. This included retaining a number of staff on ‘standby’ at home in case there were unexpected sickness absences. The service also created a sterile secondary facility in the control room complex in case the main site had to be closed because of contamination.
Prevention
The NFCC issued guidance explaining how services should take a risk-based approach to continuing prevention activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The service adopted this guidance.
The service conducted fewer home fire safety and safe and well checks than it would normally undertake. It reviewed which individuals and groups it considered to be at increased risk from fire as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Operational fire crews continue to provide safe and well checks, but only at premises they attended while responding to an incident. The service’s list of vulnerable persons has been re-prioritised. It now includes those perceived to be at a greater risk of harm because of the pandemic.
The service decided to continue offering face-to-face visits for those most in need and when there was no other viable way of engaging with them. In these cases, it provided specialist prevention officers with suitable PPE.
As an alternative, triaging an individual’s needs on the telephone is proving to be successful. In suitable cases, this provides the service with the opportunity to direct residents to online resources. The service continues to provide a telephone service to its cohort of potential ‘fire setters’, who are deemed to be more vulnerable as a consequence of the pandemic.
Protection
The NFCC issued guidance on how to continue protection activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes maintaining a risk-based approach, completing desktop audits and issuing enforcement notices electronically. After requesting its own legal advice, the service decided not the follow this guidance and suspended fire safety audits for a limited period.
The service explained to us that this decision was based on concerns about the extent to which audits could be done ‘remotely’ to a high enough standard. The service’s position is that an audit needs to be done in person to bring the ‘situational awareness’ that is essential to this specialist work.
The service also told us it doubted that it was possible, without a physical inspection, to judge whether the ‘compartmentation’ of a building would be effective in breaking the spread of fire.
As a consequence, for an eight-week period from 18 March 2020, the planned protection audit was stopped. During this period, the service lead for protection kept in touch with those responsible for fire safety in their known high-risk premises by mail and social media. Fire safety officers were also available 24 hours a day to respond to reports of fire hazards in buildings and assist operational crews attending fires in commercial premises. However, this activity is less than what we would expect and not in line with national expectations.
The fire safety audit programme has since resumed, and statutory notices are again being issued for premises that are unsafe. The backlogged audits caused by the suspension have been rescheduled within the timescales set out in the programme. We recognise that the decision to operate outside of national guidance is a matter for the service, but it involves risk.
The service has continued to engage with those responsible for fire safety in high-risk premises that have cladding similar to that at Grenfell Tower, in particular, premises where temporary evacuation procedures are in place.
A site for a Nightingale hospital has been identified in the county at Detling Showground. Although no final decision has been made on whether it will be built, the service has worked with interested parties to advise on fire safety measures.
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. Support put in place for staff included occupational health services, mental health webinars, wellbeing seminars, counselling and one-to-one meetings with line managers. Line managers made themselves more available to support staff working from home.
Staff most at risk from COVID-19 have been identified effectively. Working with the service’s occupational health doctor, the service developed a ‘COVID risk estimator’ for all members of staff. Staff were invited to enter their personal data (age, general health condition, ethnicity, gender etc) on a screening matrix. The risk ‘score’ was cross-referenced to an individual’s role and the risk it carries of contracting COVID-19.
The COVID risk estimator has proved to be an effective means of establishing not only someone’s likelihood of contacting COVID-19, but also the likely consequences of the infection for the individual. High scoring members of staff have access to a tailored support programme. The risk estimator is helping the service to make informed decisions about which staff should return to the workplace and when. The risk tool has also been shared with the NFCC and has been adopted by other fire and rescue services.
The service is also taking innovative steps to safeguard its workforce against the long-term impacts of COVID-19. The chief medical officer has devised a six-minute walk test for staff who are returning to work after contracting the virus or experiencing symptoms. Any individuals who have difficulty with this test are automatically referred to occupational health for ongoing monitoring. We also note that the service has made extra provision for staff with pregnant partners or family members with health conditions.
The service made sure that firefighters were competent to do their work during the pandemic. It has adapted its training curriculum to reduce risks of contamination. This includes ensuring that theory-based training is completed away from the workplace and that practical training is conducted with smaller groups of firefighters.
The service assessed the risks of new work and responsibilities to make sure its staff had the skills and equipment needed to work safely and effectively, including those working from home.
The service has taken a lead role nationally for the provision of PPE. It established a PPE logistics hub with Kent County Services (a trading arm of the county council). Over 400 suppliers were subject to ‘due diligence’, market testing and technical certification. The hub has provided 6 million items to the public services sector in Kent and is the single point of procurement for UK fire and rescue services.
Staff absence
Absences have decreased compared with the same period in 2019. The number of days or shifts lost due to sickness absence decreased by 29 percent between 1 April and 30 June 2020, compared with the same period in 2019.
The service updated its 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 ‘return to work’ procedures after self-isolation, testing requirements and pay entitlement for COVID-19-related absence. Data is routinely collected on the numbers of staff who are 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. The service developed a range of communication channels as part of its COVID-19 communications strategy. These were established in the first week of lockdown and involve webinars for large audiences, wellbeing seminars and regular virtual team meetings.
Most on-call firefighter survey responders told us that they received more communication during the pandemic than in normal times. Popular means of keeping in touch with staff included e-mails, virtual huddles and messaging services. Peer support was also available through the service’s wellbeing network. Virtual quizzes and coffee mornings were an innovative means to maintain relationships between staff and overcome the negative effects of social distancing.
The service intends to maintain changes it has made to its ways of working in response to COVID-19. The service is evaluating some of these with a view to making them ‘business as usual’ in the future. These include virtual meetings, which avoid unnecessary travelling and bring environmental benefits; wellbeing seminars, which are popular among the workforce; and remote working, which brings the benefits of a better work/life balance.
Working with others, and making changes locally
To protect communities, fire and rescue staff were encouraged to carry out 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: delivering essential items to the vulnerable; fitting face masks for NHS and social care staff in high-risk environments; delivering PPE and other medical supplies to NHS and social care facilities; and providing training in the prevention and control of infection in care homes and hospices. Firefighters have also been trained to drive ambulances should the need arise.
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 specifies 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 outside the tripartite agreement, the specifics would need to be agreed nationally before the work could begin.
The service consulted with the FBU and the Fire Officers’ Association to implement the agreement. There were also extra requests for work by partner agencies that fell outside the tripartite agreement. These included delivering meals on behalf of Age UK, as many of their staff were self-isolating; delivering prescriptions to vulnerable residents on behalf of the district councils; and assisting with the distribution of supplies to foodbanks. These additional services were continuing at the time of the inspection.
All of the new work undertaken by the service as part of the tripartite agreement is being completed in line with agreed time schedules. A ‘tasking cell’ has been established to manage requests for assistance from other organisations. This provides a single point of contact in the service to receive and allocate tasks efficiently and effectively.
No extra allowance is paid to staff who volunteer for a new role. However, they are paid for the additional hours they work for external organisations. For example, non operational fire and rescue service staff working for SECAmb might work longer hours than they usually would, and so would be paid for the additional hours they worked.
It is the role of managers in the tasking cell to monitor requests for assistance from external organisations. Additional spending is scrutinised at director level, and the supply of additional services is reviewed as part of the service’s COVID-19 governance arrangements. This includes regular ‘dip sampling’ of additional spending to ensure that it is allocated to the correct budget code.
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. The service is a member of the Kent LRF (KRF).
The service is an active member of KRF. The chairing of KRF’s strategic co-ordination groups is shared between the service, Kent Police and the county council. KRF is supported by a number of operational ‘cells’ that support its overall strategy to manage COVID-19. The service is supporting these cells – for example the death process management group, which ensures that the county’s mortuaries are not overrun. The service’s director of prevention, protection, customer engagement and safety has been prominent in shaping KRF’s brand identity – ‘Kent Together’. As a hashtag, Kent Together has been used nearly four million times as part of promoting the services offered by KRF.
Of note was the working of the multi-agency information cell (MAIC). This has been established by the service on behalf of KRF and has made a positive contribution. The MAIC is staffed by Kent fire and rescue personnel and plays a pivotal role in collating accurate, up-to-date information relating to the pandemic. Senior personnel commanding any crisis will always be more effective if they have access to reliable information. The MAIC provides senior KRF leaders with current, ‘at a glance’ data relevant to COVID-19 (for example, care home infections and mortality rates). It also acts as a single point of receipt for the multiple requests from HM Government for information and data. Its staff have become adept at identifying the key individuals in Kent’s public services who can deal with these requests. This means that the supply of information and statistics can be maintained without distracting KRF’s senior leaders, who remain focused on managing the pandemic.
Use of resources
The service’s financial position has not been significantly affected by COVID-19. It has made robust and realistic calculations of the extra costs it has faced during the pandemic. It has also forecasted the likely effect of COVID-19 on the local economy, its impact on council tax and business rates and the consequences for the service’s revenue budget.
Its main extra costs are PPE supplies, sanitising products and additional costs incurred by on-call firefighters providing services as part of the tripartite agreement. The service 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 the financial risks it has identified. This includes surpluses that have accrued because of reduced travel and conferencing costs.
The service has received £1.6m of extra government funding to support its response. It spent this money on PPE supplies, overtime for wholetime firefighters, and supporting the functions of KRF. It has shown how it used this income efficiently, and that it mitigated against the financial risks that arose during this period.
Ways of working
The service changed how it operates during the pandemic. The lessons learned from Operation Domino in 2018 have been useful in this regard. The rollout of technology in the service has meant that many functions could continue with staff working remotely. For example, the ability to operate the payroll away from the workplace was tested as a part of Operation Domino. It was found that some adjustments were needed and so, for example, widescreen monitors were purchased to support home working. Forward planning has meant that the service was in a good state of readiness for the COVID-19 pandemic.
The benefits of a reliable IT infrastructure, combined with creative thinking, has meant that the service has been able to maintain recruitment despite the pandemic. Changes to recruitment mean that online testing and competency interviews, by means of video, now form the first two modules of new procedures. This means that only applicants successful on both of these modules progress to practical exercises and fitness testing. Because of this, only those candidates with the required aptitude will advance to the latter stages of recruitment procedures. As a consequence, ‘wastage’ in recruitment has been reduced and practical tests for smaller groups of candidates minimise the risk of infection.
The senior leaders had positive feedback from staff on how they were engaged with during the pandemic. As a result, the service plans to adopt these changes in its usual procedures to help promote a sustainable change to its working culture.
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 that 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. Additional services were also allocated to on-call firefighters in recognition of the fact that some of them were furloughed by their main employers, which made them more available than usual.
The additional responsibilities for on-call staff included both tripartite and non tripartite tasks. The service’s position is that the opportunity to do additional paid duties justly rewards on call firefighters and recognises the sacrifices they make in their personal lives to protect local communities. The service also made good use of non operational staff who volunteered to help vulnerable residents in a variety of ways.
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 with the size of the authority varying between services. Each authority ultimately has the same function, which is to set the service’s priorities and budget and make sure that the budget is spent wisely.
The chair of Kent and Medway Fire and Rescue Authority was actively engaged in discussions with the service, including its chief executive, on the service’s ability to discharge its statutory functions during the pandemic.
The service regularly updated the fire and rescue authority 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. The fire and rescue authority put arrangements in place to give its members relevant and regular information about how the service responded to the pandemic. It made use of technology and held meetings virtually.
Looking to the future
During the pandemic, 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. This provides an opportunity to use these experiences during COVID-19 as a platform for lasting reform and modernisation. Likewise, the service has shared its COVID risk estimator and other services have benefited from it.
The service has had a productive, longstanding relationship with SECAmb. The pandemic has strengthened this relationship. The service has responded to more paramedic emergencies and has driven ambulances during the crisis. It has also expanded its programme of ‘ambulance experience’ shifts, which provides work shadowing opportunities and helps firefighters adapt to paramedic responsibilities.
The service is exploring opportunities for a joint logistics, storage and distribution facility with SECAmb. This has the potential to reduce costs and improve services for both organisations.
Of national interest to us is the joint work with Kent County Council to establish a PPE logistics hub. At the height of the crisis, the hub purchased clinical PPE in accordance with regulatory safety standards and best value. The hub supplies millions of items to public services in the county and provides fire services nationwide a reliable procurement framework to source PPE equipment.
Next steps
We propose restarting our second round of effectiveness and efficiency fire and rescue inspections in spring 2021, when we will follow up on our findings.