NFCC PPE and Clothing Committee are delighted to have obtained funding from the Home Office Commissioning Hub for the Future Firefighter Concept project. This research based project will look at fire service uniform and personal protective equipment (excluding respiratory protection) to ensure that it is fit for purpose leading into 2030 and beyond.
This research will be undertaken by Defence Science Technology Laboratories (DSTL) in association with NFCC and look at a variety of challenges, issues and opportunities that face all Fire Service across the UK. There are two over-arching principles to the research; firefighter safety and Inclusivity to promote and represent UK Fire services as diverse inclusive employers.
The National Procurement Hub want to give thanks & congratulations to Brett Egan Briers, our National technical Lead for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), for his incredibly informative Future Firefighter presentation delivered at the @Emergency Services Show.
Brett gave the packed theatre an insight into the research project being conducted in conjunction with DSTL, which focuses on station wear and personal protective equipment (structural firefighting garments), to ensure that these meet the needs of our ever widening field of operations, ensuring firefighter safety is maintained at the core of our requirement over the medium to long term, whilst also looking towards new innovative designs for a singular national uniform that within its design demonstrate our inclusivity, promoting recruitment and retention from our diverse communities. For all those that didn’t get to see Brett’s presentation live at the show, you can watch it live below.
Brett’s presentation
Some of the items to be covered by the research will be; concern surrounding fire contaminants, the broadening remit of fire service response, the profile of incidents attended and new innovations and technologies that can be utilised.
End user feedback is essential to this project and conversations with fire services and other interest groups will be coordinated through the NFCC PPE and Clothing Committee who already have a good structure to support this.
This page will keep you updated with progress and also provide contacts for more information.
NFCC
To ensure that all fire services were informed about the project NFCC Chair Mark Hardingham recently wrote to all Chiefs to outline the project and what to expect over the coming weeks.
Click here to read the letter.
Working with Industry
A key area for the research is to build a good understanding of the challenges, issues and innovations that face the supply network of uniforms and PPE garments. Recently we had an opportunity to brief the suppliers through their representative trade organisations of this new research project. This is the presentation that was given to representatives from; FSF (Fire Sector Federation), BSIF (British Safety Industry Federation), FIA (Fire Industry Association), FRES (Fire & Rescue Equipment Services Council) and PCIAW (Professional Clothing Industry Association Worldwide).
Click here to see the presentation.
Updates from the NFCC PPE & Clothing Committee
The NFCC PPE and Clothing committee are coordinating this important research with dstl. Updates about the research will be posted within this section of the webpage with links to relevant documents.
Chair of the Committee, Steve Topham, has recently written to regional representatives and single points of contacts to ensure they are informed and prepared for the initial phase of the project.
Click here to view Steve’s letter.
Phase 1 Report
NFCC are pleased to make available the Phase 1 report following agreement with partner dstl. This report details the findings from consultation with end users and respective work associations/groups. The report can be accessed below
Useful downloads
- Industry Partners DSTL Research Presentation – 0.22 mb
- DSTL Research Letter Chiefs Final 160622 (002) (1) – 0.15 mb
- A statement of User Needs – 0.06 mb
- Steve Tophan DSTL letter – 0.11 mb
- ST Letter for AFSA – 0.11 mb
- ST Letter for FOA – 0.11 mb
- ST Letter for WFS – 0.11 mb
- ST Letter for FBU – 0.11 mb
- ST Letter for FRSA – 0.11 mb