Risk aversion and the failure of our emergency services

The litany of errors in the emergency services’ response to the Manchester Arena attack has been widely detailed this week, from a senior police officer who failed to pass on crucial information, to a key fire officer who spent an hour driving in from his home, and a specialised paramedic unit that took 44 minutes to arrive from Stockport.

The only paramedic to turn up in that three quarters of an hour – because he had ‘self-deployed’ – was supposed to triage patients but forgot his triage cards and never went back to his vehicle to get them.

A ‘risk averse’ senior fire officer set off a chain of events that led to a two hour and six minute delay in their arrival to the arena, despite knowing they might be needed to extract patients.

The overall response was ‘far below the standard it should have been’ and that was partly because ‘no one really thought it could happen to them,’ Sir John Saunders, the inquiry chairman said.