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Winding down after a full on year, it’s a great opportunity to reflect on the last 12 months and what’s happened in the world of the emergency services.
We published six editions of Emergency Services Times packed with interviews, insights, updates and product news from across the sector.
I got to interview some incredible people. Figen Murray came to Nineteen Group to tell us about her son Martyn who was killed in the Manchester Arena bombings. Her powerful story came out in my interview with her in August.
Expanding my knowledge of policing, I interviewed Ian Bell, CEO of the Police Digital Service; Mark Hallas who heads up Crimestoppers; with Professor Paul Taylor and T/Chief Constable Pete O’Doherty both sharing their worlds of science, technology and cyber.
Watching the first and second 3 hour meetings of the London Policing Board has showed how the Casey Review into the culture of the Met is leading to some big existential discussions filled with wicked problems.
Leadership is a big topic and we’ll continue to cover meetings like this to understand, if we can, what’s going on as services look deeply inwards to find ways to change and improve.
I kept true to my fire roots with insights from now retired Assistant Chief Fire Officer Alison Kibblewhite. She, along with former London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton who I had a fireside chat with at The Emergency Services Show, talked to me about the reality of being a woman in a male dominated service.
Culture is a topic that ran through 2023 and that’s not going away any time soon as services work through the findings from the inspectorate and others.
Dr Shane Ewen published his book about the regulatory environment that led up to the Grenfell Tower fire and with Professor Guillermo Rein’s in depth knowledge of wildfires, they lent some great academic rigour to the magazine.
Climate change impacts will be a key thread for us as we build our sustainability section to embrace the acute and chronic risks.
I don’t think I’ll ever know enough about the ambulance service, but learned a great deal by talking to NWAS chief Daren Mochrie, NHS Confederation’s Sarah Walter and Isabel Lawicka from NHS Providers. Ambulance handover delays, problems of flow and the continued pressure on the NHS are unlikely to recede much from our editorial in 2024.
I am determined to provide coverage beyond police, fire and ambulance and embrace the many Cat 2 responders who will have found themselves under a greater spotlight as the Government woke up to resilience in a big way with the National Resilience Framework (and its one year review) and the 80+ risks in the National Risk Register. Simon Brown was a great interviewee as the Met Office became an official Cat 2 responder. He even gave me a personal weather forecast – surely a year highlight.
We decided that the December issue would be the last print version and we would move the operation to a new digital platform to be agile and responsive to our readers and the changing world in which they operate.
After just a couple of weeks, I can report it’s amazing to be pure digital. Being able to see what works, what’s popular and who is sharing what is incredibly powerful and will be at the heart of our editorial approach going forward.
I am, as ever, grateful to our advertisers and to the suppliers who support us and The Emergency Services Show, providing solutions to the problems and challenges across the emergency services space.
2024 looks to be a great year for Emergency Services Times as we build the digital presence, release series two of our webinars and who knows, we might even do a podcast. Late to the party, but with my new editorial team, we can try lots of new things. I look forward to sharing them with you.
Happy holidays, enjoy the break.
