Standard Operating Procedures

We have been reviewing the five major common factors involved in line of duty deaths.

Last week we looked at the communication piece and just a touch of how that can tie

into the incident command system.

This week we will look at Lack or failure of SOPS

For review I have listed the five factors below:

Five major common factors among line of duty deaths are:

Lack of use or participation in Incident Command

Lack of proper risk assessment.

Inadequate communication.

Lack or failure of SOPS

Lack of accountability.

This one is pretty simple for me. I believe that there are three basic causes for this

issue of failure of SOPs and the reasons are as follows: We wrote the SOP

not to do a job or a specific task, but we wrote it to cover our butts and concern

ourselves with liability issues. (My personal favorite is the two in and two out,

and I was guilty of writing one initially like this so I know of what I speak!)

The second is that we wrote the SOPs some time ago and they have never been updated,

reviewed and revised.

The third reason is that we really don't enforce SOPs and in fact we have such little

intestinal fortitude in the fire service we now refer to them as SOGs!

Let's look at what we can do about these three issues one at a time.

Look at each one of your SOPs. Why was it written and what is the real objective that

you were trying to achieve with it. Does it actually reflect what needs to happen at your

incident scenes in your department? Does it reflect what actually is being done at your

emergency scenes? Use these two questions as a measure of your current SOPS.

The second issue of keeping your SOPs current. A periodic review and a review

of incidents using your SOPs during incident analysis after incidents will help

you keep your SOPs current. Have officers review them often with a critical eye.

Have someone review current fire service books, documents, periodicals and

be sure that you are performing according to nationally recognized training

standards. Have your training officer train, and conduct in-service training for

current members on SOPs.

The last issue is the most problematic and difficult for the fire service. If you take

the steps I have just given you above, and you have insured that your procedures

are to meet and objective, they are current and necessary, and your personnel have

been trained on these procedures, then when the procedures are not used on the emergency

scene then the personnel that did not follow them should be sent for training and review

on that particular procedure. Maybe the entire company needs to go for review. Maybe the

officer needs the training review and reminder. If it happens again then swift, appropriate

disciplinary action should be taken. But wait you say, the union will be upset. As an officer

do your job, and let the union do theirs. Do not be afraid to take an action because of

a perceived action that might occur later. Maybe it is a volunteer or on-call firefighter

and they will be angry and quit. That is not a good thing in these days of low personnel

but at least he will be alive, safe and mad at you next week instead of dead.

A person that is not going to play by the rules is generally cut from the team.

In closing, check and review your SOPs, match them against what you are

currently doing, train to them and with them, review incidents with them, and for

goodness sake have the guts to enforce them. As tough as that is, it beats a funeral

or hospital visit everytime.