The National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) is taking steps for the electronic sharing of information on incidents through a Multi Agency Incident Transfer (MAIT) hub.
It has published a market notice for support in providing installations and connections to the hub with a messaging solution for sharing critical information between the control rooms of emergency services.
This is aimed at enabling the electronic sharing of critical information rather than relying on the traditional use of telephone contact.
MAIT is an XML schema for emergency services to share electronic incident records, developed to reduce the time taken and better co-ordinate their responses.
The notice indicates that all 33 fire and rescue service control rooms in England shall be connected, web enabled and fully integrated with command and control despatch systems. The work will be carried out through a procurement framework with a single supplier from which all fire services will be able to call off the business.
Grenfell response
The plan reflects a key recommendation of the report on the first phase of the enquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 in which more than 70 people were killed.
An interim Home Office report on progress indicated that a temporary solution has been developed in the form of two talk groups running on the Airwave network. But it adds that full completion of the recommendation is dependent on the roll out of the MAIT solution.
The NFCC has also published a notice in search of a supplier to develop a platform for the hosting and support of new websites and digital services along with a new paid membership portal.
