Today’s correspondent raises questions about State Rescue Board policy and the problem of diminish and aging volunteers.  They say their NSW SES:

… Unit has a decreasing number of members due to the general decline in volunteers and has struggled to recruit members for some years. The unit has also relied upon an aging membership for daytime availability Mon-Fri with the daytime cohort ranging in age from 65-74 years of age in varying classifications of fitness. [Half of these members] … have been unable to undertake the minimum hours of training as required and have self-selected to be “support rescue workers” and not actual on-tool rescue operators.

Most weekdays we will have one competent and fit operator with one or two “support rescue workers” however technically that means we have ONE rescue operator and NOT two which is required to staff a rescue unit.

We have read the State Rescue Board Policy as to the minimum requirements for 2 x SRB operators and formed an opinion that if we did not have two trained, accredited and competent operators that we would need to go offline.

We sought direction from SES paid staff as to the legal status of both the support rescue workers and the other Rescue Operators and the process to notify the Police RCO that we were offline as we did not have TWO qualified operators.

The unit leadership were advised verbally by paid staff that “there is no longer a strict interpretation of the SRB Policy due to the numbers of available volunteers.”  Further that a unit would not be taken offline by the ZORO or DZC and a decision would be made by the State Operations Centre if and when a Rescue call came in as to the appropriate SES unit to respond”

The concern that we have is that if we don’t have the required number of competent operators we should be marked as offline and another unit (neighbouring units are VRA, FRNSW and RFS) would be automatically responded thus reducing the response time to an entrapped patient.

We have also been advised that SES are not obliged to notify the RCO if we are under strength, have a delayed response or are unable to maintain 24Hour cover and are now confused as to our reading of the SRB Policy contradicts what our paid staff are telling us.

Can you please outline the requirements for manning, numbers of technically competent rescue operators required and also the process to be followed for the support rescue workers and if people who have not undertaken the required hands-on rescue skills maintenance and/or are unable to meet the requirements of the rescue role can be classified as an accredited rescue operator.

The problem is that I have no more information that my correspondent. I can read the State Rescue Policy but if the State Rescue Board (SRB) and the NSW State Emergency Service have come to some ‘understanding’ then I cannot comment on that. On the other hand I believe that regulators, and everyone, should ‘say what they mean and mean what they say’. By that I mean we should be able to accept that the published State Rescue Policy says what the SRB expects to happen and if they have made alternative arrangements they should be in the policy. What does the policy say?

The State Rescue Policy (4th edition, 5 July 2021) says at [1.53] under the heading ‘Rescue Crews – land’:

The minimum crew required to respond to a rescue incident is two qualified and current operators. Trainees may attend to conduct on the job training in addition to the two qualified rescue operators but must be supervised by a qualified and currently competent rescue operator not actively involved in the rescue.

The term ‘qualified’ is not specifically defined but Attachment H sets out the Competencies required for General Land Rescue so presumably a person is qualified if they have those competencies.

What it is to be ‘current’ is also not defined. Paragraph [7.02] says:

It is the responsibility of each agency which provides accredited rescue units, to ensure that their rescue operators are trained in accordance with the SRB Policy and their skills are kept current.

Currency means ‘the process that recognises member’s skills, training and capabilities, captured via operational activity or skills maintenance, as determined by the agency’ ([1.17]).  If the SES has set standards for currency (and as noted, these are determined by the agency, not the SRB so are not in the Rescue Policy) and the members have not been able to meet those standards then one can infer that they are not ‘current’.  A rescue unit must consist of ‘competent and current rescue operators’ ([1.33]).  The concept of ‘support rescue worker’ is not in the State Rescue Policy.

Paragraph [3.12] say:

All rescue operators are to be 18 years of age or older and of sufficient physical and mental fitness to undertake the full range of tasks likely to be required as a result of accreditation.

The Policy is clear, ‘The minimum crew required to respond to a rescue incident is two qualified and current operators’.  If a unit cannot put together that team, and one current operator and to ‘support rescue workers’ does not fit that definition, then they do not meet the minimum standards to provide a rescue response.

If SES staff say “there is no longer a strict interpretation of the SRB Policy due to the numbers of available volunteers” it begs the question of whether it is the SES, or the SRB that ‘no longer have a strict interpretation’.  If it’s the SES then they should comply with the policy and if it’s the SRB they should change the policy so that it says what they mean, and if they don’t change the policy they should insist that it is applied on its terms as it says what they mean.

Paragraph [2.10] says:

When an accredited rescue unit (GLR, RCR, VR, or FR) becomes temporarily unavailable for tasking, the responsible agency must immediately notify the NSW Police Force ROG RCO and submit the Rescue Unit Unavailable/Available notification form. The Rescue Unit Unavailable/Available notification form is available on the Emergency NSW website.

I note that this says the agency (ie the SES) must ‘immediately’ report when a rescue unit is not available. On the other hand we’re told that the unit can sometimes put a crew together so one might infer that if a call is received the critical question is ‘are they available now?’   That is how certain is the unit that they are unable to put a crew together.  If the accredited and current operators have said that they are not available then the unit knows they are ‘temporarily unavailable’.  But if it is simply an expectation that sufficient accredited and current operators won’t be available but they haven’t explicitly said that, then one might reasonably argue that you don’t know you cannot put the crew together until the call is received.

The State Emergency and Rescue Management Act 1989 (NSW) s 47 says that the ‘principal function of the State Rescue Board is to ensure the maintenance of efficient and effective rescue services throughout the State’. The Board is to develop policies to achieve that goal (s 48) and the decisions of the Board are to be implemented by agencies the operate accredited rescue units (s 49). It follows that the SES is required to give effect to the Boards decisions that are reflected in the State Rescue Policy.

So my correspondent is correct at least based on what I have been told and that is ‘the SRB Policy contradicts what [I’m told the ] … paid staff are telling us’.  And it is the SRB Policy that should prevail. 

Conclusion

The NSW State Rescue Policy says that the minimum crew for a land rescue unit is two qualified and competent rescue operators. Qualified means they have the competencies outlined in Attachment H and current means they have met the requirements for currency as established by the organisation, in this case the NSW SES.  They have to be ‘of sufficient physical and mental fitness to undertake the full range of tasks likely to be required as a result of accreditation’.

If a unit cannot put together a crew that meets those requirements the agency, should advise the police that the unit is temporarily unavailable.   If they know, in advance, they will not have a crew available then that information should be provided. If they don’t know until the call out is received, then police should be advised as soon as it is realised that the crew will not be available.

The concept of ‘support rescue worker’ is not in the SRB policy.  Either people are accredited, current and fit for duty or they are not.  If people think they are unfit for duties, particularly in a volunteer organisation, then it is up to them to let the unit controller and up the chain of command that they are no longer available to volunteer as a rescue operator.

If a unit is regularly unable to put together a crew, it is likely to lose its accreditation as a rescue unit but it is important for police and the community to know that they can call on accredited units and accredited units will be able to respond.

That is what the SRB Policy says. The SES is not at liberty to unilaterally decide that ‘there is no longer a strict interpretation of the SRB Policy’ (s 49).  If the SES and the SRB have come to different arrangements they should be made public or the policy changed. 

This blog is made possible with generous financial support from (in alphabetical order) the Australasian College of Paramedicine, the Australian Paramedics Association (NSW), the Australian Paramedics Association (Qld), Natural Hazards Research Australia, NSW Rural Fire Service Association and the NSW SES Volunteers Association. I am responsible for the content in this post including any errors or omissions. Any opinions expressed are mine, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or understanding of the donors.