Category: General

Hello Guides : How To Be a Firefighter Part 2

At the request of some our readers. I went hunting for stories of how people became firefighters to see if they had any useful advice or tips for people who wanted to go into the emergency services. I went to have a chat to some working firefighters at Southwark Fire Station in London. This first

Hello, Guides: How to be a Firefighter Part 1

All photos by Eleanor Whalley Firefighters are cool. There’s no denying it. They save people’s lives and get to drive around in  huge trucks that make loud noises. Whether you are young or old, there are things in that kind of life that are inherently cool. The comedian  Dara O’Briain puts it perfectly in one of

The Emergency Services and Comedy

The emergency services often feature in stand up comedy, for some comics they are untouchable- heroes who according to Dara O’Briain are “absolutely bullet proof”. But for others like the ever angry Jack Dee they are not so much… (All rights belong to the BBC- I’m just spreading the word)

The London Safety Plan

The Draft London Safety Plan is a plan (unsurprisingly) or perhaps more accurately a potential schedule of how the fire service could be ran and organised in the next few years. I came across this consultation on line looking for discussion and suggestions over what the final plan might include.  This consultation is part of

So you want to be Sarah Lund…well you can’t!

Being female a police office is statistically one of the most difficult careers to get into, add being of an ethnic minority and the odds decrease even further. I found this when looking at the statistics of how many women were hired, fired and promoted in the police force. For full details of the post

24hrs in A and E Episode 1

The Lack of Routine 24 hours in A and E is a ‘fly on the wall’ documentary recording the highs and lows of working in the emergency department of King’s College Hospital. On first glance the premise of the show sounds at best slightly gimmicky and at worst highly exploitative. The first episode manages to

One Born Every Minute

                            I’ve written alot about the police, the firebrigade, even ambulance workers on this website. But I’ve never really written about those who work in a hospital on a regular basis. On one level it is obvious that hospital workers are emergency

So you want to be Sarah Lund?

Sarah Lund, serious faced, dysfunctional and intelligent has been hailed as “the” female detective in the Danish television series The Killing. She is one of few women police officers seen in the fictional world of popular culture. If you want to be Sarah Lund in the real world and in the UK, what are your

Flying To The Rescue

An Interview with Robert Cocks MD How long have you been a doctor, and how did you get to where you are today? I studied at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine in London from 1976-1981, so I have been qualified for 31 years now! For the first 9 years I trained to be

A homelessness emergency

How do the Emergency Services interact with Homeless people? Brighton, home of the Pavilion and  holiday destination, seems a wonderful place to live.  But it has an ongoing and increasingly urgent crisis of homelessness. Neil Vowles argues that cuts to legal aid and charities, reductions in housing allowance and the increasing unemployment all play apart.  In February Caroline Lucas tabled a parliamentary

Hello, Guides: How to be a Paramedic (Part 1)

Speaking to people who have spent years in the emergency services has made me wonder how many of them got started. Paramedics for example, how exactly does one become allowed to drive in an ambulance and how long does it take? Here is what I have found. First and foremost, what does a  paramedic actually

Exercise Forward Defensive: Audio Slideshow

For two days, London’s combined emergency response force staged a large-scale training exercise simulating a terror attack during the Olympic Games. Featuring all of the emergency services, as well as specialist transport divisions, the huge rescue and containment operation was deemed to be a success by Home Secretary Theresa May. With a press presence and

The Cost of Safety

In researching the front-line lifesavers for this site, I came across this Guardian article about Health & Safety regulations for emergency services. It’s not something one thinks of straight away, is it? In practice it makes total sense: a dangerous job needs a set of rules to keep staff safe. But has it gone too

Hello, Emergency Services…

…which service do you require? Are you a member of the Police, the Fire & Rescue or the Ambulance services? Or perhaps you’re one of the rarer breeds – bomb disposal expert? If you’re not a member, you might not know that there are a lot of roles that make up the front-line emergency services

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