It’s been a busy three months for us in the JESIP Team as I’m sure it has been for all of you. Our Winter Newsletter features some latest news, including our new team members , new LinkedIn page and new research . We’re increasingly keen to hear from you about what’s going on with JESIP in your teams and your areas, so do please get in touch with us with any news we can share.

One of the highlights of the past few months was our attendance at the Emergency Services Show in Birmingham in September. It was fantastic to meet and see so many of you there, and in many cases that has just been the start of conversations with you that have been continuing since. We were blown away by the interest in our JESIP stand, which demonstrated incredibly clearly how much demand there is out there for JESIP products and services, and how much desire there is across the whole sector to do JESIP better.

I also found time to have a quick chat with the Emergency Services Times to talk about our ambitions for JESIP transformation in the next few months and years. We hope to attend more such events in 2025 and very much hope to meet more of you there.

More recently I’ve also been on a visit to Scotland to meet the SMARTEU team there and talk about the partnership work we can do together. The team and I will be doing lots more of those kind of visits across the next year, including in Northern Ireland early in the new year, and undertaking more assurance visits in different parts of the country. We will also be holding a JESIP research symposium in Liverpool in the new year. So let us know if there are meetings, conferences or events that we can come and speak at or learn from and help spread the JESIP message.

I also want to say a personal thank you, and a thank you on behalf of all of us in JESIP, to Chief Constable Charlie Hall, who is retiring from his role at Hertfordshire Police this Christmas. Charlie was one of the founding fathers of JESIP in its first inception, and has been the biggest possible champion of it ever since, both locally and in his national roles as SRO and Chair of the NPCC Operations Committee. It is in this case very true to say that none of what we have achieved in JESIP would have been possible without him. I wish him well in his retirement and thank him on behalf of all of us. Chief Constable BJ Harrington from Essex Police will be taking on the JESIP SRO role from Charlie. We very much welcome him to this post, and I know he will want to say more about his ambitions for the role as he takes it on next year.

I hope you are also able to get some rest and friends and family time over the festive period coming up, but I also appreciate that many of us in the world of JESIP and emergency response will be required to work and respond to incidents, for which I am very grateful. However you are able to spend it, I wish you well and look forward to working together in further partnership in the new year.

Meet our new team members…

Katie McCallum

Katie joins us from Hertfordshire Constabulary as Business Support Officer. Katie has been in policing since 2011, having joined as an apprentice at the age of 16. She has worked within Human Resources and as a PA for a number of Senior Leaders, including Gold Commanders working on major incidents. As Business Support Officer Katie will play a central role in our programme management, resource planning, risk register and governance, as well as several other crucial roles.

Malcolm Landells

Malcolm joins us from the Scottish Ambulance Service as our ambulance specialist service practitioner. He has recent experience working as a Special Operations Response Team (SORT) Paramedic in the East of Scotland and in the last two years as a Resilience Advisor for the Scottish Ambulance Service. Malcolm is a huge advocate for both the importance and the potential of JESIP, not just for our blue light partners but across the whole responder network.

Alex Perks

Alex is an experienced police officer who joins as our policing specialist service practitioner. He joined the City of London Police in 1996 and transferred to Hertfordshire Constabulary in 1999, where he was worked on operations planning, including for several major events, and as an Eastern regional training lead. Alex has also worked as a CBRN tactical adviser and loves working in partnership with counterparts from other services.

Ben Wooders

Ben joins as our fire service specialist practitioner from the London Fire Brigade. He is a Level One Incident Commander in the LFB and most recently served as a Command Unit Team Leader in the borough of Lewisham. He regularly chairs multi-agency meetings at high profile incidents and is passionate about multi-agency working. Prior to joining the Brigade he previously served in the British Army for 15 years, including as a Search and Counter IED specialist.