POLICE and firefighters from Wirral are playing their role in a major training exercise designed to test the joint response of Merseyside's emergency services to a disaster.
The mock test - codenamed Joint Endeavour - in Liverpool is the culmination of a national two-year training programme for incident commanders which aims to ensure the blue light emergency services across the country work effectively together to save lives when responding to a major incident.
The programme was set up after a number of inquiries, including those into the July 7 2005 bombings in London and the Derek Bird shooting spree in Cumbria in 2010, showed that the emergency services were not working as well together as they could.
Joint Endeavour will run for 14 hours and will involve nearly 1,000 people, including officers and staff from Merseyside Police, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service and North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust, and partner organisations including Liverpool City Council, British Transport Police, the Ministry of Defence and the Environment Agency.
Assistant Chief Constable Darren Martland, of Merseyside Police, said: "The exercise today is the culmination of two years' training across the emergency services and it will test the joint response of the emergency services, and a number of other agencies, in relation to those initial hours following a major incident.
"JESIP (Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme) has trained more than 10,000 incident commanders across the emergency services to improve crucial areas of communication between the services, develop a better understanding of the different roles and responsibilities and ensure more effective joint decision-making.
"Joint Endeavour will test that training, which is designed to improve the service provided to the public by all three emergency services.
"Our ultimate aim as emergency services is to protect and save lives and reduce harm and by continually reviewing how we work together we can ensure we provide an effective and efficient service to those in need."
The exercise will take place at the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service Training and Development Academy on Storrington Avenue, Croxteth.
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