Good morning all...a newby to the IOSH forums but hope someone can give me some insight into the current issues regarding Health and Safety facing the Fire Service / Emergency services today? Thanks, Wayne.

They have as many issues facing them as any other operation. A myriad issues. Here is an interesting liability case I recently read. Two emergency vehicles in collision: Craggy v Chief Constable of Cleveland – Court of Appeal (2009) In a highly unusual accident a police car and a fire engine on their way to two separate emergencies collided at a traffic light controlled cross roads. The police driver had a green light in his favour and the lights were red against the fire engine. The fire engine driver treated the red traffic light as a give way signal as the driver of an emergency vehicle is entitled to do, not anticipating the presence of the police car. Both vehicles were displaying flashing blue lights and sounding their sirens. The fire engine driver was injured and sued the police for damages. At first instance the judge held that the police driver was negligent in that he should have been able to stop when another emergency vehicle entered the junction. He found two thirds contributory negligence on the part of the fire engine driver. “......the possibility that another emergency vehicle might drive into the junction against a red light at the very moment that PC Price drove into it was remote in the extreme. I consider that in imposing a duty on him to drive in such a manner that he could stop in the event of another emergency vehicle emerging from Linthorpe Road, the judge placed an unreasonably high burden upon him”. *Mr Justice Owen* The police driver successfully appealed. The Court of Appeal held that to expect the police driver to have driven in such a way as to be able to stop in case another emergency vehicle had entered the junction at the same time was to impose an unreasonably high standard on him. The circumstances of the accident were highly unusual and not ones that a driver could reasonably be expected to anticipate. The cause of the accident was the claimant’s negligence in entering the junction against a red light when it was unsafe to do so. Comment: The Court of Appeal does not expect even professionally trained drivers to anticipate highly unlikely occurrences.

Thanks to all who responded...it's really great to get a community feel out of a forum like this. my overall views so far of where I think issues may lie is things such as the work at height regs which I believe the Fire service is partially exempt from? Other things involve the manual handling regs as I believe that was the biggest cause of over 3 day injuries in the 04/05 statistics. I am also looking at the likelihood of devastating medical issues, Legionnaires disease, risk of collapsed buildings, hazardous materials, DSEAR regulations and post traumatic stress disorders to name but a few...on top of that operatives need to be fully trained on dynamic risk assessment and then we have the issue of actually getting to the emergency safely. Can anyone expand on these for me?

There is also the Striking the Balance thing between the Police and the HSE, due partly to the fact that the Police in some cases are under a duty to put themselves at risk - rather uniquely in some ways - at work. Have a look at the HSE press release and statements, and also http://www.acpo.police.u...ressrelease.asp?PR_GUID={EF5AA09F-CBFB-4A43-8D18-2F81C3D01063} Martin