Covid-19 reinforces need for national reform of Fire Service

摘要

In his annual assessment of England's fire and rescue services, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Fire and Rescue Services, Sir Thomas Winsor, found that: 1.Fire services rose to the challenge of the pandemic, with many fire and rescue staff taking on additional activities 2.Changes to improve fire and building safety in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire are necessary and welcome; and 3.Progress has been made on introducing a code of ethics to address toxic working cultures found in a few fire services. However, the Chief Inspector said fire leaders were not always able to quickly deploy firefighters to support the pandemic response -for example the Covid-19 national vaccination programme - because National Employers and the Fire Brigades Union failed to reach a national agreement.