On Tuesday 19th November 2013 the inaugural Blue
Light Innovation Conference took place at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference
Centre and attracted an even spread of 400 senior delegates from the police,
ambulance and fire and rescue services.
The energy on the day from delegates, speakers and suppliers
was infectious and made for lively debates during the question and answers
sessions, networking breaks and interactive seminars. Bearing the recent Knight
Review and the Government joint working agenda, debates on the date centred on
how cross agency collaboration and effective leadership can improve performance
and efficiency.
The day kicked off with a keynote from the Minister for
Policing and Criminal Justice, The Rt
Hon Damian Green MP who delivered a charming and insightful speech into maximising
joint working, and innovative strategies he was putting in place to improve to
blue light service delivery. The Minister stressed that that joint working makes
business and operational sense and came with his “cheque book”. The Minister
announced a £50 million police innovation fund for 2014/15 to incentivise
collaboration between blue light services to deliver further efficiency.
Further still, he announced he will be giving a £20million fund for Police and
Crime Commissioners as a precursor to the innovation fund from now. He also
shared how the Department for Communities and Local Government will be putting
forward £75million fund to support transformation change in the fire service in
2015/16; giving a total of £195million for the blue light services over 3 years
to take forward joint working, saving money and improving services for the
public.
Chief Fire Officer Roy
Wilsher followed the Minister’s session sharing with the attendees the
successes achieved in the first hour of response to a complex incident as a
result of the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme (JESIP) that
he chairs and detailed process improvements; findings from the JESIP blue light
survey and future joint training with the National College of Policing NARU and
LRF partners. This session was followed by a lively questions and answers
session mainly exploring the Ministerial funding announcements and the
specifics into achieving successful joint working. The networking breaks
throughout the day were inspirational with relationships being made, contacts renewed
and passions for improvement discussed. The busy exhibition, full of key
suppliers, also played an important part in the day’s success, facilitating
networking and an opportunity for delegates to find solutions to meet their
needs.
Following the break, Merseyside
Police, Fire and Rescue presented their work as a case study and discussed
their cross service collaborative Joint Command and Control Project. Areas discussed
included governance; regional service demands and building a new site to meet
operational requirements. This was followed by Paul Nicholson, Assistant Director of IM&T at North East
Ambulance Service NHS Trust who covered the 111 service, new commissioning
structures, triage system (NHS Pathways) across the NHS, changes to ambulance
service delivery and the Single Point of Access to joint emergency services working
with urgent care units. What was particularly clear from this session is that
there is still some way to go in merging Ambulance Services with Police and
Fire and Rescue. The morning session was closed by the only independent Police
and Crime Commissioner Ron Ball who
was praised by Damian Green MP earlier in the day, gave a measured but candid
insight into how Warwickshire police authority has made significant savings whilst
exploring the bumpy journey to joint working which juggled different cultures
and opinions.
Following lunch, further networking and interactive, supplier
led seminars into the latest innovation techniques, the afternoon plenary kick
off with the highly anticipated speech from John Wailing, Chief Technology Advisor at the Home Office. Mr
Wailing discussed the Emergency Service Mobile Communications Programme and the
new ESN (Emergency Services Network) within the context of progress to delivery
smarter, quicker and more productive services. His session also explored the
challenges of data exchange, the need for broadband to meet communication
demands, ensuring choice of device for the task at hand through improved
procurement practice and finally covering the future of Long Term Evolution. This
session was followed by Tom Bennett,
Director of Technology Services, Devices and Laboratories from EE who
supplemented Mr Wailing’s session with more technical insight into encouraging
greater mobility and merging networks through partnerships across the UK. Finally,
Mick Trosh, ITS Project Lead from
ACPO closed the conference by discussing the emergency service vehicle
challenges and innovations for the large blue light fleet required to serve and
protect the public.
Thank you to all that contributed to the day, and with the
agenda of joint working growing in strength we look forward to welcoming you
all back to next year’s Blue Light Innovation Conference in the autumn of 2014.
