In September 2015, Mike Pitney, EASST Adviser, established a one-year project to build the Institute’s training curriculum on multi-agency working, road safety, and road crash response.

The Lviv Institute for Fire Safety is part of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine and provides training for all fire fighters. The project involved students of the Institute and its staff as well as the city administration and Lviv City Traffic Police Department. The Head of the Institute was keen to co-operate and develop the content of their training programme. Mike Pitney saw this is an opportunity to influence the training of all future fire fighters, particularly in responding to road crashes. In partnership with the Institute, the team shared UK best practice, which was adapted and incorporated into the educational programme for all Ukrainian firefighters. During the first visit, Mike and Oksana Romanukha held successful stakeholder workshops and meetings to plan the project.

A second visit in May 2016 worked to increase partnership between the agencies with the aim of reducing the high number of road deaths and injuries – an increasing but preventable burden in Ukraine which is estimated to cause an annual loss to the economy of nearly €4 billion.

The project team for this visit was Mike Pitney, Julie Utting and Oksana Romanukha and a representative of South East Coast Ambulance Service and the focus was on casualty-centred approach to emergency response, specifically road crash response. The team organised a roundtable event with representatives from the police, fire and ambulance service, local authorities, local road safety organisation, RSSF, and relevant representatives of the University. The session focused on the cost of road deaths and injuries as well as UK examples of partnership working and how it has achieved casualty reduction.

The team emphasised the importance of joint training (which currently does not take place in Ukraine) and answered questions about the principles of joint working and how this is conducted in the UK. As a result, the participants drew up an Action Plan on how different agencies can work together. Currently each agency has its own agreed emergency response action plan but no joint agreement or training programme currently exists. A joint working group was established with named representatives from the police, fire, and ambulance services, Road Safety Support Foundation, and the local authorities, led by the University to continue progress in this area.

To demonstrate why partnerships are vital to casualty reduction, an interactive scenario took place with crews demonstrating how they would respond to a road traffic collision. The Team provided feedback and highlighted where joint working arrangements and a shared focus on the casualties would help to save lives. This was the first time such an activity had taken place.

The South East Coast Ambulance Service representative delivered first aid training and answered many questions about first aid and trauma care in the UK, particularly at the scene of road traffic collisions. This further facilitated discussions on joint working and responsibilities. The team were joined by Alex Geraimovich of Korosten Fire Station who spoke about his crew’s activities regarding community safety and preventing fires and road traffic collisions. The team visited Korosten Fire Station, where UK fire appliances are in operation and conducted first aid training with the crew as well as talking about partnership working and the developments in Lviv with the station’s Chief.

In Conclusion

The project successfully introduced multi-agency working to the Ukrainian emergency services and helped embed this into their internal structures and training curriculum.  The project has led to an immediate change in the way the emergency services manage their post-crash response work.  In addition, the team have ensured further developments in this area by supporting the establishment of a working group to take the project forward on an ongoing basis.