Tri Service Safety Officer
The Tri-Service Safety Officers (TSSO’s) role is to provide early intervention, prevention, and an operational response through collaborative working between Devon and Cornwall Police (DCP), Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service (CFRS), South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) and Cornwall Council’s Anti-Social Behaviour Team. The role is a vocation in its own right, providing a unique and innovative approach to resolving community safety matters by jointly targeting and identifying issues.
The role targets and aligns with all of the agencies priorities in relation to protection, prevention and response. The development of the ‘TSSO’ role builds sustainable and strong working relationships with partner agencies with one of the main aims of the role being to assist the existing emergency services resource through reducing demand and releasing resources to complete other priorities.
Tri Service Safety Officer Duties;
- Respond to 999 emergency calls for CFRS and SWASFT
- Deal with ‘non-immediate’ DCP community safety matters
- Complete multi-agency home safety visits
- Resolve complex neighbourhood policing issues
- Work with the local Anti-Social Behaviour caseworker to manage cases within the local community
- Integrate within the neighbourhood policing team
- Assist with completing neighbourhood enquiries (non emergency 101 calls made to police).
The TSSO role allows for the opportunity to identify additional areas of concern together with fire safety, safeguarding, anti-social behaviour, protection matters, youth intervention and health, safety and wellbeing, allowing an officer to reduce the risks directly or assist with making agency referrals and arranging multi-agency meetings.
The TSSO role provides the three emergency services with a presence in otherwise hard to reach communities. They are able to risk assess, and problem solve key issues within the local community. Having access to multiple data affords quick problem solving and intervention. The early intervention work that the TSSO’s carry out reduces demand and impact on the 3 emergency services, and key partners within the public, private and voluntary sector, and their local communities.
There are currently 13 officers located across Cornwall. The TSSO Locations are; Bude, Callington, Fowey, Hayle, Helston, Liskeard, Lostwithiel, Looe/Polruan, St Dennis, Perranporth, St Ives, St Just and Torpoint with scope to open up further TSSO locations in the near future.
To keep up to date with the work of current Tri-Service Safety Officers, you can find them on Twitter:
Bude - Adam Chapman - @BudeTSSO
Callington - Ella Henwood - @Callington_TSSO
Fowey - Yasmin Matthews - @FoweyTSSO
Hayle - Adrian Hart - @HayleTriService
Helston - Phil Whittingham - @Helston_TSSO
Liskeard - Richard Deavall - @LiskeardTSSO
Lostwithiel - Josh Harmon - @LostwithielTSSO
Looe/Polruan - Bradley Barnes - @LooeTSSO
St. Dennis - Lewis Rosewell - @StDennisTSSO
Perranporth - Phillip Graham
St. Ives - Dan Tyldesley - StIvesTSSO
St. Just - Andy Martyn - @StJustTSSO
Torpoint - Ollie Vigo - @Torpoint_TSSO
Current Landscape
In addition to the extension of the TSSO role at Hayle, an additional two officers have been employed in Bude and Liskeard. TSSOs Adam Chapman (Bude) and Richard Deavall (Liskeard) have been seconded from CFRCSS and will work in partnership with DCP, SWASFT and Cornwall Council’s ASB Team to develop the role in their respective area. The officers will face varying challenges as these areas differ geographically.
In order for the services to adequately understand the outcomes from the pilot, Munro Research and Evaluation have been commissioned in order to carry out an impartial and accurate analysis of the role’s activities, advantages and the challenges that have been encountered.
National Interest and Recognition
The TSSO role has attracted national interest due to its innovative and collaborative approach. This has seen senior officers from other areas visit Cornwall in order for them to gain a view of the role. These visits provide our services with a great opportunity to demonstrate the ground breaking work that has been carried out since the start of the pilot in 2014. Our team have also completed a number of out of force visits to police forces and fire services in order to understand other similar projects being piloted and to discuss our own.
In December 2015 the TSSO role received national recognition following the receipt of an award for ‘Excellence in Fire and Rescue’ in the collaboration and innovation category. In 2017 the role again received national recognition following a nomination at the ‘Alarm Awards’ in Manchester where the role received a ‘Highly Commended Award’ following the positive work that had been carried out.
Rob Horton, Responder Manager leads on this initiative.
The Future
The evaluation will be completed by early summer and will inform future plans. Our multi service aspiration is to expand the locations of this innovative role and provide further protection and prevention to the communities of Cornwall and the South West.
South West Emergency Services Collaboration group, which includes all senior leaders of all emergency services, continue to support and promote this initiative.
Andy Hichens, TSSO Hayle
“At this time I can state that I am incredibly proud to be part of this innovative trial and remain enthusiastic and dedicated to its cause. I will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that I play a positive part in ensuring the TSSO roles abilities are exhausted in order for us to learn its limitations. I thank you all for the support that you have provided to both the project and me personally and recognise that the role would not have come this far without your support.”