Responsibility for the provision of emergency medical services, including pre-hospital emergency care, rests with the Health Service Executive (HSE) which operates the National Ambulance Service and emergency departments in hospitals in accordance with health sector legislation and national policy. Fire authorities created under section 10 of the Fire Services Act, 1981 & 2003 are empowered under section 25 of that legislation to carry out or assist in any operation of an emergency nature.
The National Ambulance Service may call on Community First Responders for assistance before its crews reach an incident and many fire services are equipped with automatic external defibrillators and the majority of fire services have trained their fire-fighters in Cardiac First Responder and Emergency First Responder to Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council standards for health and safety reasons.
Therefore, fire services personnel in many fire stations are already trained and equipped to a standard that could enable them to respond to life threatening emergencies. Given the infrastructure of fire services around the country and particularly in rural locations, the Retained Fire Service is well placed to assist the HSE with responses to such life threatening emergency calls.
As Minister with policy and legislative responsibility for fire safety and the provision of fire services by local authorities, a primary concern must remain, in accordance with the Fire Services Acts 1981 and 2003, that local authority provided fire services are meeting their statutory obligations in respect of their primary role in the provision of fire services and fire safety. These responsibilities include the important activity of community and other fire safety initiatives as well as response to emergency calls.
Fire services generally respond to calls for assistance from external bodies in accordance with protocols operated within the three fire services Regional Communications Centres.
The feasibility of fire services, outside the Dublin Fire Brigade area of operations, being commissioned by the HSE to provide a response service in support of the NAS in responding to life-threatening emergency calls was discussed at national level at the Fire Services National Oversight & Implementation Group, which consists of fire service management and staff representatives and it produced a discussion document as the basis to underpin discussions with the Health sector. The document was discussed at the Management Board of the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management in July 2018 where a number of issues including the transfer of risk and mechanisms for funding were raised that remain as items of discussion with the Department of Health.
Any proposal for formalising this assistance would need to be subject to appropriate governance and cost reimbursement arrangements and to be set in the context of a service agreement with the HSE/National Ambulance Service which will not impact on or adversely affect fire services' primary roles. It is critical that local authority and fire services' resources are not inappropriately diverted from their statutory fire service and fire safety responsibilities. The potential impact on the current Community First Responders schemes would also have to be assessed.
