'Someone is likely to lose their life because of shambolic control centre'

As a 15-year-old I was trained to work a telephone switchboard at British Rail, down the harbour, I also have worked a telephone link at Vaudin's Taxis, done some evening cover on the phones at Guernsey Police when I was a special constable and worked for some years as a porter/telephonist at the very busy Castel Hospital, so it is fair to say that I am used to telephone procedure.

That is why, when I called Jescc and said that there was smashed crockery all down my road which appeared to have been taken from a roadside stall, I requested and indeed expected a States Works road sweeper. After all, the pleasant lady at Jescc told me she would contact States Works. But instead, it seemed some brain surgeon of a supervisor took it on him or herself to deal with it as a matter of criminal damage and sent a policeman instead. Now while I said it seemed to have been taken from a roadside stall, my only concern was the potential damage being done to people's tyres, not the loss of property to an unknown person. I know that all calls will be logged and recorded, so someone in high places should be able to track down my call and see exactly what was said. If anyone suffered damage to their tyres I am sure that a claim could be made to Jescc due to their tardiness in alerting States Works. Incidentally, I did tell the SWD driver that debris went all the way down to the Braye Road as he was under the impression that only La Rue du Passeur was affected.

This is just another failing at Jessc, the whole place is a shambles, staff morale is at rock bottom and staff are leaving left, right and centre. Staff training has not been what was promised and Deputy Mary Lowe, normally like a terrier after a bone, has been very noticeably quiet about anything to do with Jescc, which comes under her control.

The Press reported that the cost of this monstrous white elephant would be £300,000 but informed sources tell me that the computer software alone was double this amount. Huge sums are being paid in overtime as staff cannot take time off in lieu as they are so short staffed. It appears that even toilet breaks are difficult to take and I fail to see how anyone can stay alert for a 12-hour shift without a break or two. Deputy Lowe did not respond to a previous request asking about staff turnover, I understand that very few of the original control staff from the emergency services are still there and rumour has it that a former, very experienced police control room operator has recently left.

My question to Deputy Lowe was to reveal exactly how many staff have left since this publicly funded white elephant was started, her lack of any response tells me that this is not a question she wants to answer because we might not like what we hear. All I know is that someone, somewhere is likely to lose their life because of this shambolic control centre. As a matter of interest, your readers may like to know that ambulance response times are no longer started from the 999 call, but in actual fact from the time the dispatcher alerts the ambulance service. This means that valuable minutes could get used up by an operator asking questions from a crib card. That was definitely not the ambulance service that I saw with my own eyes under Reg Blanchford – if the ambulance was not mobile within 60 seconds he would want to know why. So, many years on, we have an ambulance service that is inferior to what we had in the past.

Getting back to Deputy Lowe, she is clearly ineffective and not in control of this fiasco and perhaps it is time she considered her position and resigned as a deputy and we could have a by-election for two deputies in the Vale.

I have no ulterior motive here as I will not be putting my name forward, I am just concerned that some people have contacted me with horror stories about this fiasco, where they report that operators are obviously just reading things from cue cards instead of being able to assess the situation and deal with it efficiently. During my time at St John the shift leader would answer the 999 call, say 'what's happened there?' and promptly press the emergency siren. The ambulance would be on its way and, with a left and right arrow at the exit, heading in the right direction before the crew knew exactly where they were going. Progress? I really don't think so.

TREVOR HOCKEY,

Trev's Motorcycles.

Editor's footnote: The following responses have been received.

Deputy Mary Lowe, President of the Committee for Home Affairs, said: All of the political members of the committee visited and met staff at the Jescc recently to observe the 'live' systems in operation. The committee will continue to ask questions of senior staff to make certain that it is suitably reassured about performance standards. If Mr Hockey, or indeed any other member of the public, has concerns I would be happy to meet with them.'

Mark Lempriere, chief secretary for Home Affairs, said: We are conscious that we have already responded to several letters from your correspondent on this subject and much of the contents of their letter are already a matter of public record.

As an example, we have publicly acknowledged previously that there have been challenges with regard to the Joint Emergency Services Control Centre since its launch last year.

However, it is important to also acknowledge that Jescc operators have consistently provided an excellent service to our community. This excellence is evident in the fact an operator has recently been shortlisted for a national emergency dispatcher of the year award.

We have also previously confirmed that, as is best practice with any large-scale and important project, we will be carrying out a post-implementation review later this year. We have committed to supplying the Scrutiny Committee with the findings of that review.

At launch, we confirmed that the set-up costs of Jescc were £310,000, which included building work, specialist IT equipment, training and other costs such as the purchase of the Pro QA call-handling software. These set-up costs did not include the purchase of the Vision Command and Control software used in the centre. This software had been previously purchased as part of the Guernsey Police capital project to replace its ICT systems. It was not until this software had been commissioned by Guernsey Police that a decision was subsequently taken to develop it further and use it to help create Jescc.

During the last 18 months, there have been nine members of staff leave for varying reasons.

Jon Beausire, chief officer of St John Ambulance and Rescue Service, said: With regard to your correspondent's claim that ambulance response times are no longer monitored from the time of call, I'd like to take this opportunity to clarify that the letter writer is incorrect. We monitor response times from call to arrival on scene for all categories of calls.