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The head of a fire brigade at the centre of an inquiry into the death of a woman who fell down a mine shaft believes that existing health and safety rules are preventing fire-fighters from saving lives.

Strathclyde Fire and Rescue chief officer Brian Sweeney said fire-fighters are more fearful of health and safety legislation and the prospect of being prosecuted than of the dangers they face when saving lives.

Mr Sweeney made his comments following the conclusion last month of a fatal-accident inquiry into the death of Alison Hume in 2008. The 44-year-old fell down a mine shaft in Galston, Ayrshire and was not rescued for several hours after fire-fighters from Strathclyde were told not to use the harness equipment they had available, as they were not trained in such an operation. Ms Hume suffered a fatal heart attack after mountain-rescue volunteers tried to lift her to the surface.
 
The inquiry’s findings are yet to be published, but on Tuesday (1 March), Mr Sweeney went on the offensive by suggesting that health and safety regulations were to blame for creating a “culture of fear” among fire-service staff. Speaking to the BBC, he said: “The introduction of legislation like the Corporate Homicide Act, and its application to senior officers and middle-ranking and junior officers, creates an environment where our ability to improvise is compromised – where there is a real fear, a culture of fear, about potential for prosecution and litigation.”

He called for amendments to the HSWA or the MHSWR to release fire-fighters from the fear of being prosecuted if something goes wrong when they carry out their duties in an emergency situation.

He added that life-saving decisions are generally made in the first two or three minutes of a fire crew’s arrival at the scene of the emergency. Said Sweeney: “It cannot be justifiable, therefore, that the decisions that are taken in those first two to three minutes, which, perhaps, are subsequently proven to be wrong, are then forensically analysed for the next two to three years by a whole raft of investigators and legal services.”

However, the Fire Brigades Union’s Scottish secretary, John Duffy, said, if anything, the safety regulations are too soft, adding: “If you are properly trained and equipped, there is no reason why health and safety legislation should prevent fire officers from doing their jobs.”

He said the real issue in the case of specialist rescues concerned training and the availability of the correct equipment. He pointed out that fire and rescue services must first identify the hazards to their communities using a process known as Integrated Risk Management Planning, and should then address the risk presented by such hazards by ensuring they have the necessary resources and capabilities to cope with potential related incidents.

He concluded: “Don’t blame health and safety for preventing you from doing your job. Health and safety doesn’t prevent you from doing anything. All it does is make you focus on how you do that job.”

In March last year, the HSE introduced a policy statement setting out how the Fire Service should comply with occupational health and safety duties in their operations, while underlining the Executive’s intention to take a proportionate approach to dealing with risk in the Service. The statement was endorsed by the Chief Fire Officers’ Association, the FBU, and the Government’s Office of the Chief Fire and Rescue Advisor.

An HSE spokesperson said: “HSE recognises that fire and rescue services have, by the very nature of their work, to send fire-fighters into dangerous situations in order to save lives, when anyone else would be seeking to get away from the danger, and HSE trains its inspectors to have an understanding of the work of the fire and rescue service.”

The spokesperson, however, warned: “Over the past few years there has been a number of major injuries to fire-fighters during operational incidents, some of which have resulted in multiple fatalities to firefighters, and it is only proper that lessons should be learnt from such incidents.”

Earlier this week, the Crown Prosecution Service announced that three fire-service managers are to face manslaughter charges in relation to the deaths of four fire-fighters in a warehouse blaze in 2007.