System failed the victims of Manchester bombing

THE Kerslake report provides horrifying reading in the insight it provides on our emergency services in the wake of the Manchester bombing. While the firemen could not possibly be blamed, something has clearly gone very wrong with a system that actually prevented the fire service from tending to the badly wounded and those in distress.

Surely a speedy response in such circumstances is part of the job. Instead common sense seems to have gone straight out of the window.

The public has every right to be shocked. We thought proper procedures would have been set in place but we now know that lessons have not been learned from other major catastrophes such as Hillsborough.

Senior figures have become fearful of making decisions, promoting an anti-risk culture which might be laudable in some instances but not in the emergency services.

For obvious reasons people working in those professions are going to be subject to a considerably higher degree of risk than the rest of us and they know it too. The attitude of the whole service is summed up by the fireman who has expressed his guilt in a powerfully emotive statement.

He should not have been put in that position and neither should his colleagues. In the future senior members of the emergency services must ensure such a thing never happens again.