LIFE team members: (From L to R) Steph Richardson, Ashley Taylor, Hayley Laurie and Jayne White.
South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue and South Yorkshire Police have joined forces with Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust to launch a new team to attend lower priority incidents in Sheffield, with the aim of reducing the demand on 999 responders.
The Local Intervention and Falls Episodes (LIFE) team, will see fire and police staff visit hundreds of homes in the city to reduce fire risk in properties, improve security and help people who have fallen and contribute to reducing the risk of falls. The team will respond to help people at high volume, lower priority incidents, which can take police officers and paramedics off the road for many hours.
Those incidents include helping residents who have had a fall, are not seriously injured, but are unable to get up on their own. Their work will also involve carrying out welfare visits relating to low risk missing people and vulnerable people who are risk of anti-social behaviour.
The team will operate using two specialist vehicles and will consist of four staff – two South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue employees and two South Yorkshire Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs).
South Yorkshire Fire Authority has funded the scheme for six months and, if successful, it could be extended and taken to other parts of South Yorkshire.
