Progress on developing a new MOU with St John

Work has been continuing on the review of the MOU Fire and Emergency has with St John. We’ve now reached a point where we want to give everyone an update on our progress.

National Manager Response Capability Paul Turner says since the review began last November, we have met with our Medical Response Focus Group and sought feedback from brigades and our Unions and Associations, as well as high level thoughts from St John.

“We want to thank everyone for their feedback as we had a positive response. Some useful and constructive suggestions have come through and we wanted to share the high level key themes that emerged.”

Paul says they include:

• Training
• Classification of incidents
• Communications with Comcen
• Our overall response approach

Paul says in addition, based on specific feedback that wasn’t about the MOU, we have commissioned the Fire and Emergency Operational Assurance team (formerly the Operational Efficiency and Readiness team) to undertake a targeted review of our medical response programme as a whole. This will consider the feedback that focussed on our medical response practices. This review is scheduled for our 2023/24 financial year.

“Work on the MOU is continuing, with meetings scheduled for this month with St John to review the existing MOU in more detail. We expect to identify what aspects of the MOU should be kept, what should be added and what amendments should be made for a new MOU to be drafted,” Paul says.

The review team is still aiming to have a new MOU in place this year, while still taking their time to methodically go through all the steps needed to establish a new agreement. This could affect timing.

“For now, thanks again for your input and interest. We’ll aim to give a further update in June.”

If you have any ongoing questions about the MOU review, please contact the review team here.

ENDS