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A NEW national system for recording incidents attended by UK fire and rescue services is now ready for operational use. Communities and Local Government (CLG) is encouraging brigades to start using the electronic incident reporting system (IRS) as soon as possible, and no later than 31 March 2009.
According to CLG, the system – which has been fine-tuned following a pilot study – will improve the way incident data is collected. Information will be collected in the same way, using the same set of questions, removing the need to complete and process various forms.
Brigades will be able to provide electronic data either by using an online form on a secure website provided by CLG; or by downloading their incident data from their management information systems using an XML internet link to the CLG website.
For some fire services, IRS will mean a big change in how they collect and transfer data to CLG. For others, the change will be less significant.
IRS will also be incorporated into the regional fire control centres being launched soon in England – a move that will allow automatic data transfer between the control centres and the reporting system.
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