Help with getting paged

[Fish0324]

To start I am going to say this. I know that dispatching is a hard and stressful job. Now with that said. Why is it so hard for a dispatcher to press one more button when they are paging. We have been having problems in our county with dispatchers not paging out QRS units. They have a fancy CAD system that pops up who's district etc so it shouldn't be that difficult. It has gotten so bad here lately that we have to call the center to be paged out to calls in our district. I have been told on some calls by the dispatcher "It doesnt sound too bad, so I didnt page you" Since when are dispatchers certified to make such decisions. Last time I checked the only requirement here is on the job training and emd training, I didn't see DR or Paramedic as requirements. Any suggestions to help remedy this would greatly be appreciated. I have already spoken with the county emergency manager and the county ems assn and so far nobody has gotten any results. I am not one to normally complain but when we are getting citizen complaints about us not responding what am I to do. Will it take a delay by the dispatcher to kill someone before something changes?

[nmfire]

Who manages the dispatch center? That is the person you need to speak to, not the individual dispatchers.

[Chimpie]

Are you a fire department? Are you a private EMS agency?

Are you written in on their (dispatchers) SOPs?

[ElectricHoser]

Go up the chain. If that is not successful - and assuming your gripe is 100% legit - then more people need to yank the chain. The way to accomplish that is to thank the citizens for their complaint, advise them of what you have done (going up the chain) and politely ask them to help you out and also make inquiries up the chain. Provide names and phone numbers.

If you REALLY want to stir the s***, send a form letter to the entire population of your district which explains the problem, with same said contact information of who they should speak with to get the problem resolved.

Just be warned, that form letter option is a nuke, so you better be darned sure you're right, honest, and not misleading even an iota before you launch, or the retaliation is going to leave a mark.

[Fish0324]

To answer the questions,
1. The County Sheriff & City Police Chief are in charge of the center and really dont seem to care.
2. We are a fire based EMS service.
3. We have a written contract between our agency and the law center that is renewed every 2 years. According to all I have found in the SOP's & SOG's for the county they are to page local units at the same time they page the ALS crew to all calls.

So far we have taken our complaints to the chief of police and mentioned it to the sheriff. Where next? The county supervisors and the city council or over thier heads to the state dept of public safety. I dont want to really start a war.. I just want to do my job

[nmfire]

Work your way up. If the police chief and sherriff blow you off, go to their boss (county/town). When they blow you off, go to the state.

[JOKeefe]

I'm a firm believer in communicating up the chain of command, as has been mentioned a couple of times already. The best way, as far as I know, is for the head of your department to communicate with the Police Chief & Sheriff, and, if that doesn't work, to go to their governing board or city/county board.

I notice that you have a contract, so you might also want to discuss the situation with your agency's attorney. Assuming your contract specifies what their dispatch personnel are to do and how they are to do it, there may be some consequences for failure to perform in accordance with the contract.

In any case, be sure that any complaint you make is specific and well documented. Be able to state the date, time, incident and specific failure. General statements are ineffective, and are almost impossible for anyone to follow up on, even if they want to.

Keep trying, and good luck.

[CMXIGUY]

Speaking as a supervisor in a large communication center, complaining to the rank and file will not do any good. If the problem is across the board every shift, speak to the director. Any director worth his salt should know that by breeching protocol he/she is opening themselves up for some big time liability. If that doesn't work try the board that governs the 911 center. You may want to look at a breech of contract also. And if all else fails sometimes a little media coverage works wonders.

[pumper8032]

Do you have a Service Level Agreement with them ? If not, you really need to have something in place, and have penalty clause's if certain things are not done, you may not be able to do this between government agencies, where I am from we cannot penalise another government agency, but some states have private agencies running their disptach centre's and they can enforce penalties for not meetings KPI's.
Something to look into.

Also, I assume they have your SOP's in regards to what needs to be turned out for certain calls ?

[FDNY101TRUCK]

I agree with the others you need to use the chain of command. Eventually you will be heard.

I have been told on some calls by the dispatcher "It doesnt sound too bad, so I didnt page you" Since when are dispatchers certified to make such decisions. Last time I checked the only requirement here is on the job training and emd training, I didn't see DR or Paramedic as requirements

The only thing you said that bothered me was the fact that you said when are you certified. Now I dont know the situation with which you are talking about but at the dispatch center I work at there are plenty of trained firemen or EMT's or even paradmedics. And from time to time police officers work there off duty of course but nonetheless.