News and Blog

ORH trialling a nine-day fortnight

To support ORH’s commitment to employee wellbeing, ORH is trialling a nine-day fortnight, as part of the national four-day week campaign pilot.

Since September, we have been attending training and workshops on managing the change to fewer working hours, to help ensure that the transition is a smooth one and that we can work more productively and continue to deliver effectively for our clients.

This is the second pilot organised by the campaign – the first pilot ran in 2022.  Employers that successfully made the switch in the first pilot claim to have improved work-life balances for their employees, experienced higher productivity and been better able to attract new recruits thanks to the more flexible working arrangement.

We, along with other participants in the trial, are being tracked by academics at the University of Cambridge, Boston College in Massachusetts, and the Autonomy Institute.

ORH launches OARS to help fire and rescue services tackle on-call challenges

At the recent National Fire Chiefs Council On-call Conference, ORH proudly introduced OARS – our new software application designed to optimise On-call Availability, Recruitment, and Skills utilisation. Developed in partnership with re-enkindle, OARS is the result of four years’ research into factors that make a measurable impact on on-call fire engine availability, including understanding expected availability and incident demand.


OARS enables fire and rescue services to use data more effectively to address critical challenges in recruitment, diversity, and workforce planning, particularly in the light of shortages of emergency response drivers and incident commanders, and a growing recruitment and retention crisis.
We’re very grateful to the National Fire Chiefs Council for giving us the opportunity to present this innovative solution to fire and rescue leaders across the UK, and to Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service in particular for supporting the inaugural project.


OARS is used by strategic managers within fire and rescue services, and utilises data, analysis and modelling to provide actionable insights for strategic decision-making. It is already actively helping UK fire and rescue services to improve recruitment, workforce diversity planning and resource management.


Listen here to the co-chairs of the NFCC On-Call Steering Group discuss OARS towards the end of this podcast:
In conversation with DCFO Steve Healey and ACFO Andy Cole – Priority Message | Podcast on Spotify

Highlights from ORH’s inaugural Ambulance Client Conference

March 2024 saw ORH host its first ambulance client conference. The two-day event, held at the Select Car Leasing stadium in Reading, brought together representatives from seven ambulance services across the UK. The conference served as a platform for those involved in service planning to share experiences and discuss common challenges, and included a mix of speakers from ORH and our clients.

Day 1 was the AmbSim User Group session, where clients who use ORH’s ambulance simulation model, AmbSim, within their service planning team met to discuss the software. Sessions included forecasting and planning, getting the most out of the in-built visualisations, and discussing the approach taken by different clients.

A social networking event was organised in the evening of Day 1 to bring ambulance service colleagues and ORH staff together.

Day 2 focused on the challenges facing ambulance services, and included sessions on:

  • Different options for handling relief in rosters
  • Operationalising the outputs from strategic reviews
  • Workforce Planning
  • Differences in operating models in the dispatch functions across the UK
  • ‘Silo-busting’ service planning in an ambulance service

The event concluded with a round-table discussion about what the future holds for ambulance services, and likely challenges. Feedback from the event was very positive, and we will soon be planning our next client conference. If you’d like to receive any information on future events, please get in contact at enquiries@orhltd.com

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