My views ? How about: The prat making the comment should put himself where his mouth was. Noted: The police at the London demo yesterday, taking their Hi-Viz coats off when the trouble started. Why ? Simple: The Hi_viz is NOT FLAME PROOF....so..fireworks and petrol-bombs = Hi-Viz OFF....FAST. Another prat decided that being "confrontational" was not sociable, so the guys who are trained to deal with thunderflashes with coins taped around them were kept out of view.....

If your a crown servant working for the FIRE, Police, Ambulance,prison Service, or armed forces, then there is always a level of risk, Soldiers take risks every day, and do a good job. All these jobs are high risk, Its everyone's own choice of career

I have some sympathy with what Terry said. Although you have to take reasonable precautions I do think there are some professions where an element of risk is necessary to do the job effectively. It's all very easy to be high and mighty about no one putting themsleves at risk during the course of their work well think about that for a second. You're stuck in a burning building. You're injured on top of a mountain in bad weather conditions. You're being held at gunpoint.......do you want your rescuer to risk their lives just a little bit to save yours or do you accept that you're probably gonne die cause there might be an element of risk involved in saving you? I know what I want.

I believe that if you join the emergency services then it is implicit that an element of risk comes with the territory. More so with the police, fire brigade and less perhaps for ambulance crews. For example, if as a CO19 police officer you are trained in armed response and how to use a gun. It would be ridiculous to suggest that a CO19 officer should not be exposed to danger. However, like all risks it needs to be properly managed and the risk exposure should be proportionate, including weighing up whether members of the public are at risk. I was interested to read edward's post and the 'social imperative' approach adopted many years ago. In recent years health and safety has been perceived as having a negative effect for front line emergency staff. I am not sure that HSWA was ever conceived with the emergency services in mind. Hence the waters have become muddied. Concepts like 'reasonably practicable' serve little purpose in the dynamic environment of an emergency incident.

I haven't seen the headlines mentioned in the first post but the issue of H&S and the Emergency Services is not new. These days it seems we are damned if we do and damned if we don't. However many things have changed. Many years I can remember turning out to pub fights and other serious incidents with little training and no real procedures in place, we just got stuck in, relied on our colleagues to support us and believed it would all work out. Now, we have procedures to ensure that there are enough officers present with the right training and right equipment. It's certainly made things safer. We get so much more training these days in all areas and so many of the areas that have changed are things that people used to say "It's all part of the job, you can't change the way it is" but it has changed and usually (not always) for the better. The comment regarding HiVis clothing is spot on and one of the most ridiculous decisions made in recent years (for all officer to wear it all the time). Not only is it not fire resistant it is positively flammable and you need to get it off quickly if there is a risk of fire nearby.

To take this a bit further has anyone thought about it from a cost aspect? A policeman, fireman or ambulanceman have cost quite a bit of money to train. If it is expected that they act without any thought to how safe they can do something we run the risk not only of wasting that money O(because they can't do it anymore because they were injured or even killed) plus it could simply add to the problem by increasing the number of casualties to be managed. The various forces understand fully the risk involved and do as much as possible to avoid them being made even worse. It is owed to every police officer that we expect them to go home in one piece after thieer shift is done. To simply say we expect them to ignore safety is wrong and shows a total disregard for thier lives. I ask how many of you would put your life at risk for about £25K a year?

H & S legislation as applied to the Police, has enabled great improvements in the Service. For example, with Policing high speed roads, (which is probably the most risky place an Officer will find themselves), risk assessment has required and produced improved training, equipment and procedures. This has undoubtably saved lives, and would not happen without the legislation, particularily in these times of severely restricted budgets!

Irwin I'm glad I'm not a police officer etc anywhere near where you live. As a police officer etc you have to take account of the risks before you rush into a potentially very dangerous situation as if you get injured you simply make the matter worse. Properly trained officers who can identify risks leads to them taking the best option available. That is not to say they will do nothing but a little thought before diving in puts them in a far better position to help than just blundering in. The emergency services in this country are well trained and part of that is to remain calm and think about the best possible action in any given circumstance.

Clairel you seem to missunderstand where I am coming from. The risks that anyone faces may vary widely from situation to situation for example a power linesman faces very sevier risk from very high voltages and the risk is assessed as and when they need to undertake thier work as environmental conditions can play a very important part in that work. The police etc have many generic assessments they use to form a first glance opinion but these need to be varied according to the circumstances. I believe there is an underlying view that the police should do whatever is necessary regardless of the personal risk to do thier job. That view is quite wrong, and very dangerous as the result could put colleages in danger when things turn bad with more than one casualty to deal with. I'm not saying they should not take a risk but only when the risk is acceptable.

Mmmm seems I am being cast as person who falls into the don't do anything category. There are some emergency service people who are very good at thier job and do take risks to help others which is probably the right thing to do within reason. If however there are some risks that are too great they should think twice before llpunging in and putting themselves in difficulties therefore making the resue much harder than was necessary. I obviously failed to get the point accross, it is very possible to make a bad situation worse by diving into a situation without having given it some thought. Stevel appears to be one of those who think that emergency service lives are of less value than others simply because they are paid from public money, perhaps he is a victim of the type of press stories about such incidents.

teh_boy you are absolutely right, they are trained to undertake such tasks and have the ability to judge when it is safe to act. That is not absolute safety but a judgement based upon experience and training and should not be judged by simple press reports that get twisted altered or obscured to suit the point the editor wishes to make at the time.

Oh And just so as you are aware, when I took the queens shilling, the same as many others have, I took an oath to protect queen and country, country includes civilians.

Just to play devils advocate, there is no height restriction to at least join the public services, possibly the armed forces still have one I don't know I've never joined them, as it classes as a form of discrimination to have a height limit, in fact some of the better firefighters I've served with have been the shorter people who would not have historically passed the height restriction. I shall sit back and continue to enjoy the debate now.

brian walpool park pond gosport man left, police wait for specialist services. Grandson stood with woman who reported River Meon Mislin Ford, Kids swimming 4yr old slips police officer can't go in there, friend ran up field went in and pulled kid out.

stevel, 4ft of still, clean water with a smooth bottom is a very different proposition to 4 ft of fast moving water. I was recently thrown quite a long way up a beach by a mere 2ft or so of water and struggled to prevent myself being dragged back out again - and that was wearing only a pair of swimming trunks, not weighed down by uniform, boots, hi-vis jacket, baton, taser, handcuffs, radio. The resulting scrapes and abrasions were painful when I put the sun cream on next day. There must be personal choice in all this. Why should we expect police to effect a dangerous rescue just because they wear a uniform. However if a brave or foolhardy individual wishes to make the attempt then so be it, uniformed or not. And if a colleague pulls them back from danger... the debate will no doubt go on.

Bob ref post 20 I do not feel or think that person who is paid public money is of a lesser value, if any thing they are and should be worth more. I have lost good mates who, the same as me got paid public money, took the risk and lost. You take the money you take the risk, you don't want the risk don't take the money.

Something I was told during my SAR training was that one of the hardest things you'll ever have to do is have to is to make the decision to call the abort and return to base. At the end of the day as another poster mentioned re: first aid sometimes the danger is such that the chance of an effective rescue is very minimal, and the chance of losing the lives of rescuers and SAR assets is almost a certainty. Under those circumstances the crew on scene has to make the desicion to try and effect a recsue and stand a good chance of being killed or not try and end up with a civillian casualty. Lets have a look at the examples that the likes of the Daily Mail et al keep beating H&S and the emergency services over the head with: The 2 PCSO's in Wigan who were ordered by control not to effect a rescue of a boy drowning - Ok 2 men not trained in water rescue, 1 is not a strong swimmer without equipment are supposed to wander into freezing water to try and rescue someone (who later turns out to be a very strong swimmer). From my knowledge and training, effecting a water rescue by the untrained often ends up in other casulties - if one person has been overcome by the water conditions then it is almost a certainty that untrained, unequipped rescuers will also end up being overcome. Derek Bird and Raol Moat: Delays in paramedics getting to the scene because of communications issues, sorry but paramedics should not be sent into an environment where they have no firearms training or equipment to protect them from such an individual - the delay was due to comms problems between the emergency services, something that had various senior officers and ACPO not had thier way wouldn't have happened. Many years ago we had a proposal for UK emergency services radio protocols and standards, as different services have drifted in thier own directions (particularly with Police Tetra and Secure) these have been watered down where various emergency services cannot communicate - to me the solution is not to damm the consequences and charge in, but ensure that comms standards are maintained and not allowed to drift. Lincolnshire and the (in)famous 18 inches of water and the unstable bank. The first paramedic arrived after 14 minutes, at that point (and later confirmed by the coroner) the 'casualty' was most likely dead after 10 minutes 4 minutes prior to anyone arriving on scene, and if (in the million to one chance) resucitation had been successful there would have been massive brain damage. To risk lives to save someone, possibly. To risk lives to recover a body - IMO unacceptable. 42 year old man on a frozen lake 2009, fire crews were slated for not effecting a ladder rescue on ice - this practice was banned because of the number of firemen who lost thier lives as a result of this practice. Despite the pilloring of the crew, no newspaper article has mentioned that given the man of 42 years despite being apparently in full control of his faculties he ignored the numerous warnings about venturing onto frozen rivers and lakes. I could give a run down of most of the events the press use to hammer on about this and I'm drawing my information from what I consider to be 'reputable' sources - coroners inquests and the like. And the thing that I feel does our emergency services personnel a great disservice is the back handed allegation in the press that they are a bunch of namby pampy H&S fixated cowards, especially when stories are 'spun' for maximum shock effect ignoring factors that if reported would have real relevance to how and why decisions are made. This article has generated a great deal of discussion of other forums and this is somethiing that I found which sums up many of the incidents that the press 'presume' to have an expert opinion on: Rule 1, generate no further casualties by doing foolish things. Rule 2, Use appropriately trained personnel in their respective roles. And finally, since no MCI goes as we want, use debriefings to better prepare for the next one.

I suppose that the 'military covenant' is the nearest one will see 'risk of death' in a job description. As an aside there is a Memorandum of Understanding between the HSE and MOD about the military imperative (basically soldiers can fight in a war) and the need for realistic military training. In addition, Section 4 of the Corporate Manslaughter Act allows the MOD to fight and train for wars without being prosecuted under this act.

Well said "Brett Day SP", I think you've hit the nail directly on the head there and it's a case of H&S bashing by the media (mainly the tabloids).

'...was not rescued for several hours after fire-fighters from Strathclyde were told not to use the harness equipment they had available, as they were not trained in such an operation.' I would like to know why the fire-fighters were not trained for such an operation, given they had the harness equipment - perhaps the Chief could explain that one?