Following the Cheshire FRS, Shropshire FRS, Sembcorp, GAIST and others, the West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service is the latest UK customer to be using the Rescuesim virtual training platform for its emergency response training.

After a thorough evaluation and testing period, the West Sussex FRS selected Rescuesim because of its versatility and ease-of-use in providing realistic, cost effective and safe emergency response training, increasing the preparedness of any emergency response organisation in a very affordable way.

Rescuesim is a new generation of virtual training tools for emergency responders and fire and rescue services that allows emergency crews to virtually train and experience any thinkable incident as they would in real-life. They assess the situation and determine the best response strategy, implement it and then observe the consequences of their decisions.

The West Sussex FRS will integrate Rescuesim into their Incident Command Training Center, which is a central hub for incident response training in the area. To allow for complete realistic training of any thinkable incident for the UK emergency responders, the UK version of Rescuesim includes all British appliances as well as police, ambulance and Highways Agency vehicles and the entire British line of command in terms of personnel.

Steve Hayes, West Sussex Incident Command Training Center Watch Manager commented. "We are looking forward to working in partnership with VSTEP and to further develop Rescuesim and enhance our incident command training facility, based in Crawley and create the South East Regional Centre of Excellence for Incident Command Training and Assessing, with this in
mind West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service and VSTEP have committed to working closely together for the next 5 years."

The service is looking to explore the use of virtual reality training for other Fire & Rescue services along with other agencies throughout the Southeast region. The use of RescueSim is seen as a cost effective and exciting method of training and assessing Incident Commanders at all levels within all emergencies services.

West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service are aspiring to offer students the most realistic training environment possible to simulate all types of incident that they may attend, and allow them to demonstrate their competence as an incident commander in a safe environment.

The addition of Rescuesim and recent investment in the ICS training facility at Crawley allows Incident Command Trainers to produce fully immersive scenarios based on the experiences, knowledge, and current operational requirements both locally and internationally.

Hans ten Bergen, Rescuesim Business Development Manager added, "We are very happy to have West Sussex as a Rescuesim training Centre of Excellence for the Southeast. Their expertise and experience in training both their own staff, other agencies and jointly with other stakeholders in and outside West Sussex is impressive."