Defence Online

The current contract for Motor vehicle conversion services – Framework Lead is projected to end on 03-APR-21 and may be available for retender. The Conversion of Six Chassis in to Community Response Vehicles.
Motor vehicle conversion services. Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) is the second largest fire service in the country covering an area of approximately 496 square miles, with a population of over 2 500 000 people. Within this area we currently have 41 fire stations, crewed by way of varying arrangements with approximately 1 300 operational personnel.
GMFRS Fire Service Headquarters is based at Swinton and is home to a range of support services including finance, corporate communications, property management, fleet management, human resources and information technology.
Our primary duties are contained in The Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004. They require the provision, training and equipping of the Service to undertake:
– Fire fighting;
– Protection of people and property from fire;
– Fire safety promotion;
– Road traffic collision rescues;
– Other emergency responses to civil emergencies’
With this at the forefront, our core purpose is to ‘protect and improve the quality of life of the people in Greater Manchester’.
In order to meet with this core purpose we have six corporate aims which are overarching to all our plans. These are:
– Prevention – Engage with Greater Manchester’s communities to inform and educate people in how to reduce the risk of fires and other emergencies and do all we can to prevent crime and disorder.
– Protection – Influence and regulate the build environment to protect people, property and the environment from harm.
– Response – Plan and prepare for emergencies that may happen and make a high quality, effective and resilient response to them.
– Public Value – Managing risk through using resources flexibly, efficiently, effectively, continuously improving our use of public money in ways the public value.
– People – Work with people with the right skills and attitude to deliver high quality, value for money services in a positive environment for everyone.
– Principles – Operate in accordance with the law and our values, and ensure that safety, sustainability, partnership and inclusivity run through all that we do.
In line with our Prevention and Public Value Corporate Aims, recent discussions with the North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) and Greater Manchester Police (GMP) revealed that these services continue to see an increase in demand making it more difficult for them to focus all of their activities on their highest priority risks.
We jointly believe that by building on the fire and rescue service’s success in reducing demand through prevention work, we can help to reduce the demand on NWAS and GMP whilst also improving the safety of the most vulnerable people in their homes.
As a result, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) in partnership with North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) and Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have worked together to pilot a Community Risk Intervention Team (CRIT) which has aimed to increase safety awareness while also responding to low priority incidents.
The initial pilot covered three areas, namely Wigan, Salford and Manchester.
The Team attend calls for service on behalf of GMFRS, NWAS and GMP, providing/delivering safety advice to vulnerable community groups to reduce risk across Greater Manchester and to ensure the provision of an effective Prevention Service. They also provide basic lifesaving interventions alongside.
While doing this work, if NWAS or GMP requires the CRIT to attend a low priority call on their behalf – for example to someone that has fallen in their home or elsewhere – the CRIT will attend, provide appropriate first-aid and assist the person to remain in their own home without the need to go to an accident and emergency unit.
On rare occasions where they attend and their assessment identifies that the person needs to go to hospital, they will pass the call back to NWAS and remain with them until an ambulance arrives.
From 7 pm to 7 am the CRIT will provide a response on an ‘on call’ basis to requests for assistance from NWAS and GMP. Whenever the CRIT respond they will also provide a preventative risk reduction service, where appropriate, as part of their response.
The work of the CRIT teams has been undertaken alongside the work carried out by firefighters. Our future fire fighting project has transformed our approach to fire fighting. We now have ultra high pressure capability installed on forty five of our first pumps and we have recently upgraded our hose reel tubing, hose reel branches and hose reel drums. We have recently moved from a 19 mm hose reel to a 22 mm hose reel. The future fire fighting project has aimed to improve fire fighter safety and to improve our fire fighting techniques.
Since September 2015, our fire fighters, in conjunction with NWAS, have also been attending cardiac arrests.
Our vision is to have a hybrid Community Response Vehicle that has the ability to provide both the fire fighting capability and the casualty care, bringing together the roles currently provided by both the CRIT teams and our fire fighters. The vehicle will be manned by a minimum of two and a maximum of four fire fighters and will be required to be in operation and in service from April 2016.
In order to meet an April 2016 start date, GMFRS has placed an order via the Crown Commercial Services Framework RM1070 to purchase six Mercedes Sprinter 519 CDI Panel vans, model 519 KA 4×4. The chassis are scheduled for completion and delivery to the successful tenderer in January 2016. The conversion of the chassis will then need to commence January 2016 to allow for delivery of the converted vehicles to GMFRS by April 2016.
The successful tenderer will be required to liaise with the chassis provider to arrange delivery.
The Community Response Vehicles form part of the ongoing transformation of service delivery in line with the ‘Devo Manc’ agenda which will see the devolution of powers and responsibilities handed from Central Governement to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), which is made up of the ten Greater Manchester Authorities.
Whilst the initial requirement is for the conversion of 6 vehicles, additional vehicles may be required throughout the duration of the contract period.
Common procurement vocabulary (CPV): 50117100,