Sharing and learning
As part of my relatively new freelance life I get to work with all sorts of different people and organisations. After 13 years working with the fire and rescue service, I have built up a large network of contacts, knowledge and understanding that all helps me do my job. So being involved with this year's Emergency Services Show makes complete sense.
Most of my work over the years has been focused around fire prevention and I was delighted to get involved with extending the show's reach to include this really important part of fire and rescue service business.
I've watched the evolution of the Home Fire Safety Visit (which I, as a civil servant, administered the initial funds for) into the Safe and Well visit with great interest. I am a big user of #fireasahealthasset on Twitter to link up all the activity the fire and rescue service is doing with health partners.
I'm so pleased to have found a great range of speakers for the free #fireasahealthasset seminar programme at this year's show. Forming part of Home Safety 2016, this is the first time the show has been able to provide two days of rich content for visitors interested in the prevention side of things.
And, it's been fantastic to have the importance of #fireasahealthasset recognised by CFOA and the Home Office through its Fire Kills campaigns as they are both supporting the programme.
Trying to make sense of it, I organised the two days into four discrete sections. Starting off with the morning of 21 September I've asked Ged Devereux to speak to us. Ged comes from Public Health England but he's on secondment to CFOA. He gets us. He's really helping to knit together the world of fire and health. We'll get feedback too from the evaluation of the Winter Pressures pilot project which involved GMFRS, Gloucestershire and Staffordshire FRS.
Working in partnership is core business in the fire and rescue service and with the Government's desire to legislate to collaborate, it's more important than ever. So the afternoon session of 21 September is all about how to do this in a health context. I'm really chuffed to have persuaded Steve Chu to return to the fire and rescue service and talk about it from his new vantage point as Chief Executive of Age UK Sheffield. Along with our other speakers, I hope this session will reinforce and inspire in equal measure how partnership is the foundation of #fireasahealthasset.
Day two starts off with data and research. We will hear about how CFOA is working hard in the area of data and research; how the Exeter Data is being used within Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service and get some insights into other recent research.
I was really happy to discover that the show coincides with Gas Safety Week. When I was in Government, we were always told gas safety was another department's policy area but it is of great interest to fire and rescue services. CO awareness is part of a Safe and Well visit, so the final session of the seminar programme is the perfect opportunity to learn more about gas safety and how to embed it into prevention work.
I've been working on this for months now, and with just one week to go, I'm really excited to see the seminar programme unfold. When I was working in fire prevention in Government or at the London Fire Brigade, I never would have gone to the Emergency Services Show, but I would now.
This is going to be a great free two days and I would encourage anyone interested in #fireasahealthasset to book a train ticket and visit the NEC in Birmingham.
