Inoperability test

multi-agency exercise

Interoperability test

A training exercise with fire, police, coastguard, and ambulance personnel took place in July in southwest England to test communications interoperability. Jose Sanchez reports.

A multi-agency training exercise involving a small-scale coastguard evacuation from a remote and inaccessible location has been described as a watershed moment for emergency communications in the county of Hampshire.

The basic scenario consisted of a fall from height at Hurst Spit, where Lymington Coastguard and South Central Ambulance Service would be deployed to treat, package, and evacuate by helicopter any casualties, with assistance from the fire service. The Coastguard helicopter would then carry the casualties to a landing area, from which they could be taken to hospital. A team from the SCAS Clinical Coordination Centre also attended as a remote control room, to exercise the dispatch and logging process for the ambulance service.

The specific objectives were to assess the logistical problems of transferring local personnel and equipment from shore to Hurst Castle. This 16th-century artillery fort was constructed on the Hurst Spit in Hampshire to protect against

French invasion via the western entrance of the Solent waterway. The incident location is reachable only by ferry or using 4x4 vehicles driving on the shingle strip that constitutes Hurst Spit.

While overcoming accessibility to the incident was envisaged as a significant challenge, the bigger challenge was the successful operational use of the JESIP communications protocol.

This protocol is the result of the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme that was set up in 2012 to attempt to address the difficulties surrounding inter-agency communications during large-scale incidents. It provides guidance for multi-agency response as well as a standard approach to multi-agency working. In theory, its five principles and models can be applied to any type of multi-agency incident: co-locate; communicate; coordinate; jointly understand risk; and share situational awareness.

Operation Nelson kicked off with two 4x4s heading down the shingle strip towards Hurst Castle, where the Coastguard and ambulance crew were greeted by the sight of the casualties, one impaled by a piece of metal protruding from a block of concrete, the other mobile but with an arm fracture.

32 < FIRE & RESCUE < third QUARTER 2018 read our e-magazine at www.hemmingfire.com

multi-agency exercise

The senior coastal officer for the Isle of Wight, Colin Tabor, acted as Bronze Commander for Operation Nelson.

That the staff from

SCAS and Coastguard were fully immersed in their medical tasks was an important achievement for the exercise.

In practice, as large-scale incidents involving a number of emergency services are few and far between, the JESIP protocol is seldom used. Exercise Nelson offered a rare opportunity to prepare Hampshire’s agencies for the worst. At 18:30 on 10 July, the three emergency services plus Coastguard personnel gathered at the Marina Café car park at Lymington for the briefing, while the casualties were being prepared and planted in the incident ground. As everyone gathered together, the senior coastal operations officer for the Isle of Wight, Colin Tabor, acting as bronze commander for the incident, explained the unusual aspect of the gathering. ‘It’s usually ourselves and police, ourselves and ambulance, ambulance and police, or ambulance and fire and police at a road traffic collision.’ Nobody could remember all four agencies being involved in a single incident before.

The original scenario had been even more ambitious, involving a wildland fire as well as transportation to the incident ground via ferry. The final scenario is simpler but more realistic. The ambulance crew would go on site and treat the casualties before packaging them in preparation for evacuation by helicopter. The only difference to a real incident would be that the helicopter with the casualty would land at a controlled, pre-arranged site, shared with silver command, doing away with the need for police to evacuate a car park to use as a landing site.

‘The sequence of events is that Coastguard has been called and told what has happened, and Coastguard has passed it on to everyone else, so you’ve all had calls to your control rooms. And that’s how we’ve all got to where we have to be,’ said Tabor.

Just because this was an exercise didn’t mean that the unexpected couldn’t happen, as became clear when the briefing revealed that the Coastguard helicopter didn’t have access to the Airwave talk group that had been pre-selected for the exercise. Simon Moase, tactical communications advisor for Hampshire police, already had options in mind, however. In a real scenario, he explained, it would be his responsibility to allocate the appropriate Airwave talk group channel for an incident involving multiple agencies. ‘I’ll suggest they go on ES1, with direct comms with aircraft, or use coastguard control as the link between them on VHF and us on Airwave,’ he said.

The exercise kicked off with two 4x4s heading off down the shingle strip towards Hurst Castle, where the Coastguard and ambulance crew were greeted by the sight of the casualties, one with a leg impaled by a piece of metal protruding from a block of concrete, the other mobile but with an arm fracture.

A number of significant boxes were ticked during the short time that the emergency staff were at Hurst Castle. The SCAS bronze commander used his Airwave radio to invoke ‘Methane’, the common model for passing incident information between services and their control rooms. Using this method, information can be shared in a consistent way, quickly and easily, no matter who is passing the information. In addition, SCAS silver command requested the attendance of the SCAS Airwave comms tactical adviser at Woodside, the casualty delivery area. A common channel talk group was consequently set up after liaison with the police Airwave tactical advisor. Another tick in the box was achieved by the staff from SCAS and Coastguard being fully immersed in their medical tasks, treating the casualties as they would do in real life: ‘Can you say the word “hippopotamus”?’; ‘Bandage wrapped, ‘h’ test fine, peripheral vision fine, no neurological deficit from injuries’.

With the fire department’s presence limited to Chas McGill as tactical comms advisor, the participants at the incident ground exercise had to imagine that the casualty had been removed from the metal spike by a fire team, in the presence of a doctor. With the help of exercise witnesses, SCAS public governor Bernadette Devine and SCAS chair Lena Samuels, the casualty was safely carried off to the landing area and loaded into the helicopter.

Back at Woodside, the site of silver command and casualty offloading, Simon Moase explained what had been taking place in the ether. ‘Initially it was not a police incident, but when it became apparent that police could be required, the ambulance silver commander took some advice from the ambulance tactical Airwave advisor. The ambulance tactical advisor then contacted police control room and asked them to contact the on-duty Airwave tac advisor, which is me. I talked to ambulance and we agreed on a talk group. For the purposes of the exercise this was ES3, which I knew wasn’t being used operationally today. Normally we would have used ES1, but to keep it separate from anything else that may be happening in the county we used ES3.’

The end result consisted of an unprecedented number of agencies using the common interoperability talk group: ambulance control room, ambulance silver command, police control room, police comms tactical adviser, police silver command, fire silver command, coastguard control room and coastguard ground, the helicopter, and the exercise control.

34 < FIRE & RESCUE < third QUARTER 2018 read our e-magazine at www.hemmingfire.com

multi-agency exercise

‘They were all on ES3 conducting tactical operations and establishing communications between each other as far as needed for exercise purposes,’ said Moase.

The exercise was declared a groundbreaking success, and it is expected to feed into future improvements of the communications structure. ‘From our perspectives, this is the most agencies we’ve ever had talking with each other,’ said Moase. ‘OK, in reality, it would have been bronze to bronze comms only, and you might not want so many people, but we’ve proved that it can work with this many people.'

During the hot debrief everyone had the opportunity to air their views about the exercise. Coastguard representative, Michael Forsyth-Caffrey, highlighted that there had been some confusion regarding the use of the VHF channels to communicate with fire. ‘We were using two channels on VHF, which became complicated because I couldn’t get across to you that we had changed channels with the helicopter. And I didn’t want to talk too much on zero because the helicopter didn’t want us talking, so it was quite difficult. That’s why I used Airwave, which was very handy.’

The SCAS communications tactical advisor pointed out he’d been unsure who from Coastguard was in charge at the incident ground, but this was clarified as being the result of role sharing due to short numbers – the responsible person had been for a period of time preparing the landing site for the helicopter.

Simon Moase remarked that he would like to have started the whole exercise earlier in the process. ‘So force the exercise back to that initial 999 call to one agency, and see how that information is passed from agency to agency, agreeing on an RV point, meeting there and going from there. Sometimes that’s where you get the miscommunication.’

Tim Pettis, senior emergency preparedness, resilience and response officer for Southampton and Portsmouth joint emergency planning team, who attended as a JESIP audit reviewer, closed the session by pointing out that for over a decade he had been pushing for such an exercise with multi-agency partners. ‘We can now go back and say we’ve cracked a nut. I think this is a watershed moment for more complex things to be developed, given the complexities of remodelled organisations and changes to the infrastructure across all the agencies.’

FOAM

FIGHTS

FIRE

We offer a full range of Internationally Approved, High Performance, Environmentally Compatible Fire Fighting Foams.

NEW

STHAMEX ® -Class A

Induction at 0.5%, EN1568 pt3 Certified,Perfect for CAF‘s and forest fire fighting

24h Emergency Service +49 40 7361680

www.facebook.com/Dr.Sthamer

www.sthamer.com

Participants at the incident ground exercise had to imagine that the casualty had been removed from the metal spike by a fire team in the presence of a doctor.

Read our e-magazine at www.hemmingfire.com third QUARTER 2018 < FIRE & RESCUE < 35