Select Committee on Transport Written Evidence

Supplementary memorandum by Mountain Rescue England and Wales (SAR 11A)

SEARCH AND RESCUE

  At the hearing of the of the Committee held on Wednesday 9th February, 2005 Mountain Rescue England and Wales was requested to supply additional information on:

(a)  Generic Risk Assessment Land—Search and Rescue.

(b)  Work at Height Regulations.

(c)  Use of Blue Lights by Mountain Rescue.

  We have pleasure in submitting the additional information required.

1.  GENERIC RISK ASSESSMENT

  The Home Office Police Resources Unit and the Standing Committee on Police Health and Safety established a Mountain Rescue Sub-Group. The first meeting of the Sub-Group was held on Thursday 9 December, 1999 at Lancashire Constabulary Headquarters. The Chairman was Superintendent John MacFadzean, Northern Constabulary. The Secretary was Mr Robin Ford, Home Office. The Sub-Group was renamed Search and Rescue Sub-Group. Four meetings of the Sub-Group were convened, The Sub-Group produced a Generic Risk Assessment—Land Search and Rescue.

  In the Introduction to the Generic Risk Assessment it is stated that "Occupational health and safety legislation does not apply to established civilian volunteer search and rescue teams who do not employ anyone. "

  The generic Risk Assessment has been circulated to all members of the UK SAR Operators Group.

2.  WORK AT HEIGHT REGULATIONS

  Since the publication of the Draft Work at Height Regulations there has been considerable discussion between the Adventurous Activities Sector and the Health and Safety Executive. During the course of these discussions it was pointed out that all Mountain Rescue Teams are entirely voluntary. They are neither employees nor employers. At a meeting held on 18th November, 2003 at Rose Court, London it was recorded that:

"Professionals and Volunteers: The Regulations apply to anyone at work but do not apply to volunteers. If you were sent by your employer on a climbing course then they would apply to you but if you chose to go on the same course as a `hobby' they would not. Mountain Rescue teams are volunteers and so the regulations will not apply (unless they are the police, park wardens, coastguards or similar professional rescuers). "

LAND SEARCH AND RESCUE

INTRODUCTION

Health and safety legislation

  Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 sets out the general duties of employers to their employees and section 3 of the Act sets out the general duties of employers to persons other than their employees. Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires all employers to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the is to the health and safety of his employees and anyone else who may be affected by his undertaking, for the purpose of identifying measures he needs to take to comply with the requirements and prohibitions of health and safety law.

Search and rescue teams

  Many operations are conducted by established practices and search and rescue teams capable of undertaking any task for which they were set up. These teams consist of volunteers who have been trained in search and rescue, have proper equipment, and work to established procedures. The teams be affiliated to an established body, such as:

—    Mountain Rescue Council.

—    Mountain Rescue Committee of Scotland.

—    Association of Lowland Search and Rescue.

—    British Cave Rescue Council.

  Occupational health and safety legislation does not apply to established civilian volunteer search and rescue teams who do not employ anyone. However the extent of the chief officer's obligations under occupational health and safety legislation to persons other than employees, in respect of both members of established civilian teams deployed by and acting on behalf of chief officer, and persons affected by the activities of such teams, is not clear. It is recommended therefore that the attached generic risk assessment (GRA) be adopted by both police officers and volunteers.

Review of competence

  It is suggested that chief officers discuss with their methods by which the team's competence may be reviewed and recorded on a regular basis. It is recommended that chief officers satisfy themselves that the teams operate safe-working systems possibly by documenting discussions at meetings between the police and team leaders.

Community volunteers

  Community volunteers are members of local communities who have volunteered to help on an ad hoc basis. Such volunteers are unlikely to have specific competencies but may be a valuable resource for large-scale searches for missing persons in lowland or urban areas. It is important to keep in mind that community volunteers should be considered as untrained members of the public with no experience and who may not have appropriate clothing or footwear for a search.

  Chief officers have a much greater responsibility under the legislation for community volunteers. Search and rescue team members will invariably assist in the use of community volunteers but responsibility for their supervision rests with the police.

  It is essential that all volunteers' names should be officially recorded before an operation commences and that they should be properly briefed by the incident co-ordinator or appropriate team leader. lf the person doing the briefing is a civilian, a police officer should be present if at all possible. The co-ordinator should also be satisfied that community volunteers are sufficiently fit enough for the task, that they are not too young or too old, and that they have suitable clothing and footwear. It is accepted that there is an element of risk involved in many types of search, but community volunteers should not be put in danger or be asked to do anything they are not capable of.

Completion of operation

  At the end of each operational phase or the end of each assigned task, all personnel police officers, team members and community volunteers should be debriefed effectively and any injuries or equipment loss/damage must be logged

Content

  The attached GRAs identify the significant hazards associated with the principal activities of land search and rescue for (1) police officers and members of established teams, and (2) community volunteers. These activities are:

Police and teams	Community volunteers
Team call out	Control
Personnel	Deployment
Equipment	Locate
Command and control	Debriefing
	Demobilisation

  The precise activities performed by rescue reams will differ across the United Kingdom and according to the environment. The GRA does not seek to include every possible activity or identify every possible hazard. The document provides a guide and should be used as a framework by police forces and rescue teams to adapt as necessary. It is hoped that police managers and team leaders will find the GRA helpful in constructing their own risk assessments.

GENERIC RISK ASSESSMENT USE OF LAND SEARCH AND RESCUE TEAMS

Part A: for Established Teams

  This document provides a guide and shall be used as a framework by Police Forces and rescue teams to adapt as necessary. It shall be used in conjunction with the Introduction. Sections marked * are to be completed for each individual search (operation).

Ref No	Activity	Hazard	Risk H/M/L	Control Measures Required	In Place	By when	Person resp
1.1	Team Call Out	No response or delayed response	*	Call out system and information kept up to date and fully functional. System adequate to cope with likely demand
1.2		Task outside capabilities of team	*	Range of tasks within the team's routine capability understood. Procedures in place for consultation and liaison in doubtful cases. Procedures in place for teams to request police support where appropriate (eg traffic matters, etc.)
2.1	Personnel	Team has insufficient personnel for task	*	Adequate procedures to call in back up teams and/or additional resources.
2.2		Task allocated is beyond the competence of the team	*	Team possess competent members for task within its routine capabilities. Adequate competence levels within the team maintained with systems for recruitment and for training where appropriate. Team has access to competent personnel in other organisations or from individuals for reinforcement or specialist tasks.
3.1	Equipment	Team has insufficient equipment for task	*	Team equipped to deal with tasks within its routine capabilities. Team has access to additional equipment from other organisations or individuals for reinforcement or specialist tasks.
3.2		Equipment fails in use	*	Team has appropriate schemes of equipment checking, maintenance and replacement.
4.1	Command and Control	Communications difficulties (eg inability to issue instructions or warnings or receive information)	*	Communications systems in place with adequate equipment and competent personnel to deal with tasks within the team's routine capabilities. Team has access to additional communications equipment from other organisations or individuals for reinforcement or specialist tasks.
4.2		Decisions not made and/or instructions not followed.	*	Command and control systems in place with personnel and procedures adequate to deal with tasks within team's routine capabilities.
4.3		Important information not communicated or recorded	*	Communication and liaison systems in place between police and team to ensure two way flow of appropriate information.

Part B: for Community Volunteers

  This document provides a guide and shall be used as a framework by Police Forces and rescue teams to adapt as necessary. It shall be used in conjunction with the Introduction. Sections marked * are to be completed for each individual search (operation). The Officer in Charge shall ensure completion before deployment of any search parties.

Ref No	Activity	Hazard	Risk H/M/L	Control Measures Required	In Place	By when	Person resp
1.1	Control Assembly areas	Traffic Related Hazards (eg moving traffic, dangerous parking)	*	Appropriate traffic management to, from & on site.	*	*	*
1.2		Catering Related hazards (eg food hygiene, equipment failure or inappropriate use)	*	Appropriate use of most suitable equipment & supplies available	*	*	*
1.3		Hazards related from presence of Crowds & Media (eg congestion, interference with operations)	*	Provision of crowd control measures. Media managed by appropriate Police personnel	*	*	*
2.1	De- ployment Tasking and Briefing	Hazards resulting from Inadequate Briefings	*	Appropriate briefings by a Police Officer with the assistance of a Search Manager or Team Leader, if possible	*	*	*
2.2		Hazards resulting from Age, Inadequate fitness, clothing and equipment	*	Ensure adequate briefings and monitor clothing and equipment	*	*	*
3.1	Locate Movement to and from assembly area, Searching	Getting lost or leaving the search without proper notification	*	Provision of full briefings. Provision of appropriate field supervision with each search group, either by use of a Party Leader from an established team, or a Police Officer or both	*	*	*
3.2		Communications difficulties (eg inability to issue instructions, warnings or receive information)	*	Provision of appropriate personnel, briefings and equipment	*	*	*
3.3		Uneven and/or steep ground	*	Provision of briefings. The use of a party leader from an established team if possible.	*	*	*
3.4		Adverse weather conditions (eg temperature, precipitation, wind cloud/fog, lightening and consequent ground and/or water conditions)	*	Provisions of briefings. Ensure that clothing and equipment is adequate for the task assigned	*	*	*
3.5		Operating on Private Land (eg aggressive owners, other land users, unsafe premises)	*	Use of appropriate personnel, contact with owners, briefings & liaison with Police	*	*	*
3.6		Infection/illness (eg from insects, animals, chemicals & contamination)	*	Provision of briefings and medical support	*	*	*
3.7		Animals attack (eg domestic, agricultural, wild)	*	Provision of briefings and medical support	*	*	*
3.8		Hazards resulting from fatigue	*	Use briefings, Monitoring of group members by appropriate personnel	*	*	*
4.1	Debriefing	Failure to identify and learn from mistakes and/or successes (eg when debriefings are inadequate)	*	Appropriate debriefings and documentation	*	*	*
4.2		Post traumatic stress	*	Appropriate debriefing. Provision of professional help via police. Identify possible sufferers for subsequent monitoring	*	*	*
5.1	Demob- ilisation	Accidents due to fatigue	*	Adequate food and rest	*	*	*

HSE meeting to discuss impact of work at height regulations on mountaineering and caving activities, 18 November 2003

  References; Agenda and briefing paper prepared by Robert Vaughan, HSE.

ATTENDED BY

Marcus Bailie	AALA
John Cousins	Mountaineering (MLTUK)
Gwyneth Deakin	HSE, Head of Team implementing Work at Height
Richard Hooker	HSE, legal department with responsibility for writing WAH regulations
Gavin Howat	HSE, Leisure department (Glasgow)
David King	HSE, team member WAH
Mike Merrill	HSE, laboratories
Phil Papard	HSE
Tom Redfem	Caving (ACI and NCA)
Robert Vaughan	HSE, team member WAH
Simon Waring	AAIAC representative (Centre Head, Ullswater and Eskdale OB)
Carl Wilson	HSE, laboratories

—    Consultation: Regulations have been approved and are due for publication on 4 December for a four month consultation. They will not include any exemption for adventure activities and will contain a number of areas of concem to workers in the outdoors. Responses from our industry are requested.

—    Europe: This is an EU Directive, which means that it applies across the entire community. Any country that fails to implement the Directive will be in breach of their obligations. UK HSE contend that they have carried out a process of consultation, which may not occur elsewhere in Europe ie they are at least seeking our opinions.

—    Exemption: Gwyneth Deakin confirmed that exemption for a sector is still possible, though from their point of view not desirable. Additionally, any such exemption could involve HSE being challenged by Brussels and result in years of wrangling during which the adventure activity sector might have to comply anyway. The meeting acknowledged that while mountaineering and caving would like to be exempted it was valid for the group to explore some of the specific issues that the draft regulations raised for our activities.

—    Risk: HSE stated that they were interested in managing, rather than eliminating risk. They acknowledge the safety record of adventure activities and have no desire to reduce participation.

—    Dynamic Risk Assessment: Dynamic risk assessments are recognised by HSE as highly appropriate for our activities and they point out that we are not alone in our approach eg Fire fighters dealing with a major house fire and the police dealing with a hostage situation.

—    Professionals and Volunteers: The Regulations apply to anyone at work but do not apply to volunteers. If you were sent by your employer on a climbing course then they would apply to you but if you chose to go on the same course as a "hobby" they would not. Mountain Rescue teams are volunteers and so the regulations will not apply (unless they are the police, park wardens, coastguards or similar professional rescuers).

—    Duty of Care: whether the regulations apply to an instructor's group or not they still have a duty of care to that group.

—    Weather: HSE recognise that workers in adventure activities and other sectors operate effectively in adverse weather conditions. This is achieved through good training, appropriate experience and effective risk management. HSE acknowledge that the wording in the draft regulations relating to the weather needs revising accordingly.

—    Fragile Surfaces: "fragile surfaces" are defined in the regulations and could include snow-covered boulder fields, cornices, unstable snow, rock or vegetated slopes. HSE acknowledge that the wording in the regulations needs revising in some way to acknowledge that managed and natural environments are different.

—    Hierarchical approach to safety systems at height: HSE acknowledge that in order to carry out mountaineering or caving activities one must work at height! Furthermore they recognise that it is inappropriate to work from a cherry picker, scaffold or ladder ie a personal fall protection system (a rope) is the acceptable safety system even though the regulations place this at the bottom of their hierarchy.

—    Personal Fall Protection Systems: In general, part 1 of the "requirements for personal fall protection systems" is in accord with normal caving and mountaineering practice. HSE accept that climbing need only meet these general requirements ie when ascending rock or ice the rope is a back up. Lowering, abseiling and jumaring are "positioning" techniques and therefore need to meet all the requirements in the regulations and should, therefore normally involve two ropes.

—    Is one rope safer than two? HSE acknowledge the good practice developed by the relevant mountaineering and caving bodies and acknowledged the multiple arguments for using a single rope that include:

—  No known rope breakage;

—  The need for speed in some mountaineering and caving contexts;

—  The sporting context of our work and the need to train participants in that sport;

—  Simplicity can often contribute to safety and complicating a process can create additional hazards;

—  Even at an introductory level we are demonstrating best practice to future sportsmen and women ie it is inappropriate to use an industrial system at a "taster" level.

  However they have to find ways of enabling our activities without undermining the practices of other sectors (so they should exempt us!).

—    The dangers of a prescribed two-rope system: HSE acknowledged that the system described in the regulations was very prescriptive. Cavers and mountaineers, when using two ropes would not use the specific system set out in the regulations. JC was asked to write to Gwyneth Deakins explaining the problems with the specific two-rope system.

—    A generic risk assessment for mountaineering and caving activities: HSE would like to work with MLTUK and NCAIACI to develop a generic risk assessment for our activities. This document would seek to endorse the NGB guidance, as their earlier `Guidance to the Licensing Authority' did. It would attempt to justify our rationale for using single ropes and, if appropriate single anchors. HSE will include a note in the Consultation Document explaining that this work is underway. HSE also acknowledge that this work is carried out without prejudice ie it would be for consultees and NCA, MLTUK and others to accept or reject this work.

BLUE LIGHTS AND SIRENS ON MOUNTAIN RESCUE, CAVE RESCUE AND SEARCH AND RESCUE VEHICLES

  Mountain Rescue teams use both "Ambulances" and "vehicles used for an Ambulance Purpose" however this has been questioned by a number of police forces principally where the teams have been operating in the lowland areas where we provide a search and rescue service.

  This issue was taken up with the Department for Transport in March 2003 and a reply received, (Copies attached), but as yet Mountain Rescue (A 999 Emergency Service) has not been added in to the appropriate sections of the regulations to clarify the use of blue lights and sirens as the Department has stated that there is a review underway of Blue Lights and Sirens users.

  Currently we have the situation where the Police, Ambulance and sometimes Fire travel to an incident using Blue Lights and Sirens, arrive on scene and then wait for a Mountain Rescue team to arrive.

Boscastle

  A recent example of this attitude was the response to Boscastle. All the emergency services were briefed on the critical situation in the village at the time they were called and all traveled to Boscastle using Lights and Sirens. The team leader of the Mountain Rescue team who responded with two fully crewed vehicles, was reprimanded by the Police for the use of Blue Lights and Sirens. Information was provided to the police officer concerned.

Manchester

  The three incident officers of a rescue team with five Ambulance vehicles, were informed, that they could not have blue lights on unmarked vehicles. Both Fire and Ambulance officers use unmarked vehicles to attend the same incidents in this area. Timely and accurate information was provided.

West Mercia

A rescue team was asked to sign a memorandum of understanding containing the following:

  Use by (XXX Team) of their own vehicles to attend a scene will not be deemed within the policing area of XXX Constabulary as use `for police services" even in an emergency. It will therefore be necessary for XXX Team to comply with the speed limits and blue warning beacons and two tone horns will not be switched "on" on team vehicles. XXX Constabulary acknowledges that compliance with this provision may cause delay.

  This was so serious that a meeting was arranged with the Constabulary Solicitor where information was provided.

  The situation is quite frustrating for mountain rescue teams, being called to emergency situations, and not knowing if they will be prosecuted because they are not included in the regulations.

  The situation could easily be remedied in the short term by a Special Order made under section 44 of the Road Traffic Act to amend the regulations for a specified period, normally three years, whilst the review is being undertaken.

  In my letter to the Department for Transport of the 15th March 2003 I proposed a suitable paragraph to be added to both the Blue Light and the sirens regulations.

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Prepared 7 June 2005