Accompanying notes for MP3S industry day 23rd Sep 2013
Opening Slide
Welcome to this presentation on emergency services and military personal protective equipment. I am delivering this presentation on behalf of the Home Office but it reflects a truly multi-agency approach to updating the requirements for personal or individual protective equipment for all responders to incidents involving hazardous materials in their widest sense.
Logo Slide
The operational and policy arms of the ambulance and health, fire, military and police responders have been jointly and equally involved in this work from the start, and some of those organisations are represented by key individuals who are here today.
Contents slide
Today’s presentation is the first step in our engagement with industry in this field, and is ground-breaking in that we are not doing this as part of a formal procurement process. We are using this opportunity as a vehicle to start a dialogue with industry to provide a steer and indication of the UK Government’s direction of travel for multi-threat PPE.
I’m going to outline the work that we are calling the multi-purpose personal protection system – MP3S. I will go into some detail on why we have included multi-purpose and system in the name,I’ll summarise the considerable amount of effort that has gone into gathering individual agency requirements, and I will explain how wehavedeveloped these into aconsolidatedone.
Caveat Slide
But before I do that, I would like to make a few comments about the current response. We are satisfied that we have an appropriate emergency response to CBRN and other incidents and that the protective equipment that is being used is suitable and available in sufficient numbers for this response.
We acknowledge that some of the materials used for the police PPE have been discontinued, and that forms a part of the reason for the work we are currently doing. We know that this has an impact on future supplies and will be managing the capability that we have very carefully to maintain our response.
The main reason we started this work is that we have identified that there are many different ensembles in use by responders. We would like to consolidate the position on this and hopefully reduce the number of different ensembles in use.
Let me be clear that we are not using this opportunity to launch a procurement process. But what we are doing is letting you know our probable overall direction of travel.Please bear with us as we have not done this before in this way, but we do want to provide ongoing engagement. We believe that this will be less restrictive than would be the case in any procurement process and beneficial both to you and to us
This is our first engagement with you, but we will be holding regular briefings and I will give you some details on the next one that we have planned.
We can also share with you that, in parallel, there is a review of the Specialist Operational Response being undertaken and we are fully engaged with it. This may change some detail within the overall requirement but I will provide some mitigation for this a little later.
However the overall message remains that this engagement is not part of any procurement process and gives no guarantee that there will be one in the future.
Governance Slide
This work is being coordinated by the Office for Security and CounterTerrorism in the Home Office and is supported by a number of other workstreams. These include the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme and Operational Interoperability Programme, both of which seek to support emergency services in working together better at major incidents.
It is also being extensively supported by members of the Emergency Services CBRN PPE Working Group which has representatives from all the emergency services, military operational responders and from Government departments. This group, which has been meeting since 2004, sharesCBRN protective equipment development activity and supports a joint approach to requirements, evaluation and procurement where possible, and this leads me on to describe what we have been doing over the last few months.
MP3S Requirements Capture Process Slide
In a process managed through the Centre for Applied Science and Technology (or CAST), part of Home Office Science, operational leads within each of the responder organisations have spent some considerable time defining their organisation’s individual requirements. This has involved formal interviews with specialist and other responders throughout the UK..
CAST, with the support of a Working Group,has been using a systems engineering approach to manage those requirements into a single consolidated one.
This process has been remarkably successful. The Requirements Capture Working Group comprisesoperational representatives from all responder organisations and has considered the extensive work done in each of the organisations. Its role has been to agree the detail of the consolidated requirement including identification of key requirements and prioritisation.
We are very pleased with the progress that has been made so far and once we are satisfied that we have completed it to an appropriate stage, we will release the consolidated requirement (or something close to it) to industry for consultation at one of our future engagement events.
MP3S Overview – Multi-Purpose Slide
So why have we asked you here?
Although we are not looking to purchase any protective equipment at the moment, all the responder agencies accept that there are many benefits to working closely together in this way. We have all agreed to use a common approach to gathering our requirement and have put considerable time and effort into doing this.
We have all recognised that requirements take time to gather effectively and that only doing this as part of a formal procurement could add to the time pressures unnecessarily. We have therefore been able to take several months to do this.
So today we are introducing a concept that we are calling the Multi-Purpose Personal Protection System which will provide protection forany emergency responder working in any contaminated area.
The Multi-Purpose tag covers three areas – the users, the threats and the uses. I have already mentioned (a lot) the multi-agency partnership that is very strong in this field.
As far as the threats are concerned, the lead for this work is within counter-terrorism and the threats against which we need protection continue to bethe same CBRN warfare agents and toxic industrial chemicals as previously. However we are also includingother hazardous materials including those that might be found at illicit drugs laboratories or the scene of a chemical fatality.
Any of these materials could be misused and we have rightly equipped responders to deal with CBRN terrorism up to now. However, the same responders can and do use the same skills, safe systems and, in some cases, PPE to manage non-terrorist incidents and so it seems sensible to expand the work to acknowledge this.
The system will be expected to provide protection against these threats for the full range of activities that fire, ambulance, police and military personnel undertake.
MP3S Overview – System(1) Slide
Moving on to the System, this is a major shift in concept as we will be looking for industry to provide us with individual protective items that can be used in combination or permutation to protect any responder carrying out any activity in any threat environment, anywhere.
To repeat, as the concept is vital to how we are looking at this, we are looking for components that can be used together to protect all responders, doing any activity in any threat environment, anywhere this may take place.
MP3S Overview – System(2) Slide
We are realistic in expecting that the system is very unlikely to be a single ensemble, but the fewer components or ensembles the better. There may well be innovative solutions to this, and these will be welcome, as will combinations and permutations of commercial off the shelf items of clothing, footwear, hand protection and respiratory protection.
What we currently have is some responders with a very high protection ensemble (a gastight suit) worn with breathing apparatus, and others with a very low burden ensemble worn with a negative pressure respirator. There is also a range of other ensembles in between these and it is because we are looking for such a wide ranging solution that our industry engagement is aimed at such a variety of different providers and we encourage you to work together and to innovate where possible .
Definition of Terms Slide
It might help to clarify some terms that we are using as this will also help to explain the overall concept.
Components are the individual parts which are supplied to be used in combination or permutation.
An ensemble provides full protection to an individual by combining components that provide respiratory, dermal, hand and foot protection.
The system is all of the components that are needed to make up a number of ensembles tomeet the entire requirement.
We know that components may come from different sources, and integration will be the key to meeting our requirement for the system.
As an example, a proposal that integrates all of its clothing with all of its respiratory protection would demonstrate one aspect of the flexible approach we are seeking.
There is no requirement for a ‘layered’ approach where the protection can be built up by adding garments, but such an approach would not be excluded either.
Key Requirements Slide
Whilst we are not in a position to release very much specific detail from the requirements capture process yet, we have identified six requirements which are likely to be key for any future PPE. In this context, key requirements MUST be met in order for a submission to enter the evaluation stages.
Some of these might be considered obvious but they are worthy of note at this early stage even though we are not able to elaborate or give any standards or levels for them. Specifically they relate to protection, communication, packaging and the ability to decontaminate people.
On protection, the system will be expected to protect a user’s entire body, and to provide breathable air.
Communication by a protected individual with other protected people and also with people who are unprotected will need to be demonstrated.
The packaging for all components will be expected to show if it has been breached, and will also need to display details uniquely identifying the component, its serial number and any expiry date.
Specialist Operational Response Slide
Part of the reason for engaging at this point is that we do have some requirement information that we have spent time and effort in compiling. This has led to the system concept that I have just described, and we think that sharing that may be useful to some of you.
However, there are sometimes difficulties in engaging too early and outside a formal procurement process.
One of our concerns is that there is a review of the emergency response to a CBRN event taking place amongst responder organisations at the moment. This won’t be reported for a number of months, and it is possible that there may be changes to the requirement which could result from it.
However, as we are working on a consolidated requirement, there should be no impact if there are changes to the lead or responsible agency for an activity, as the activity will still have been covered in the requirement.
Conclusion Slide
In conclusion I’d like to reiterate that this is the first stage of our engagement on this subject and we hope you will appreciate and see the benefits of our early engagement with industry. For example, making this requirement-based information available now might be useful for anyone undertaking research and development work.
Integration issues are also key to the system and there may well be opportunities for you to look at how you might be able to collaborate and cooperate in different ways across organisations.
We will continue to engage on a regular basis and will do so at events like this one, and at other existing platforms such as exhibitions. We will give as much current information as possible and will try to include anyone with an interest in this area. We will also make sure that anyone joining the discussions at a later stage will have access to the same information as those of you who are here.
As an example, the notes and slides from this presentation will be available and this will be the expected format for any future events. Although we may engage in one-to-one fact finding discussions during this process, any information to be shared will be shared with all interested parties.
We will find a way to manage any individual queries but these will end up being asked and answered in a form that is open to all. We appreciate your patience as we develop this new process of engagement.
MP3S Industry Engagement 2 Slide
Finally I’d like to invite you to the second engagement event which we will be holding as part of the CBRN symposium being held at Shrivenham on 5th and 6th November. We hope to be able to include some more detail from the requirements and also brief on potential procurement approaches that could be used in the future.
So to finish up I’d like to thank you all for being here today, and I hope you will all be able to continue to support the emergency responder community with your PPE activity.
I won’t be providing any more detailed information at the moment, but I’m happy to take some questions to clarify anything that I have spoken about this morning.
Thank you again, and I look forward to seeing you at Shrivenham.