The concerns of firefighters who were stuck at their headquarters were one of the main reasons Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham decided to commission an independent report into what happened, he has said.

He said they told him they felt "intensely frustrated" watching events unfold on television without being able to be deployed to the scene.

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service's Dawn Docx said no disciplinary action was being taken against any fire officer over the response to the Manchester Arena attack.

When asked whether former fire chief Peter O'Reilly - who announced his retirement last year - would have faced disciplinary action, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said it was not about scapegoating individuals.

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service's interim chief Dawn Docx has apologised "unreservedly" for her service's failures.

She said:

The national support for the victims of the Manchester Arena should have been stronger, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has said.

Mr Burnham said he had been contacted by victims of other terror attacks and said a better response was needed for those caught up in attacks, particularly when it came to mental health.

In the months following the attack, a dedicated mental health support service, the Manchester Resilience Hub, was set up to focus solely on helping those directly affected, including children and emergency responders.

The protocol established to deal with a marauding terrorist firearm attack "worked against" the fire service on the night of the Manchester Arena attack, Lord Kerslake said.

Image source, EPA

While ambulance personnel went directly to the scene of the attack to help casualties, fire chiefs "stuck to the rules", keeping emergency responders 500m (1,600ft) away from any suspected zone of danger.

This meant fire crews were delayed by two hours before joining emergency efforts on 22 May 2017.

Lord Kerslake said the fire response should have been more flexible.

A man left paralysed by the Manchester Arena bomb says the delays in the fire service's response "did have an impact" on those who were hurt.

Martin Hibbert, who was the closest person to the bomb to survive and spoke to BBC North West Tonight's Clare Fallon about what happened.

Members of the public who are trained in first aid could give vital help to the emergency service, Lord Kerslake has said.

He said the way some people helped in the aftermath of the Manchester Arena attack showed that such people could have an "important part to play" in future incidents.

The ambulance service made the "correct decision" to treat the most serious casualties in the Manchester Arena concourse, Lord Kerslake has said.

Image source, Getty Images

The peer was responding to the BBC's Judith Moritz, who asked it if was correct that paramedics were not deployed to the Arena foyer.

He added there would have been "a confusion of care" if doctors had operated a triage on the concourse.

A member of the public who helped in the aftermath of the Manchester bombing says more could have been done to treat the injured.

The bombing at an Ariana Grande concert last May left 22 people dead.

Rob Grew says he was left on his own, "trying to do my best" to help desperately injured victims.

Although the Kerslake Report found "frustrated" firefighters were kept away from Manchester Arena for two hours, he praised the emergency service response in the following hours.

Lord Kerslake said the actions of ambulance staff, British Transport Police officers and members of the public showed "enormous bravery", with police and ambulance staff arriving very rapidly on the scene

At critical points of the response, he said key emergency personnel showed excellent judgement.

He also praised the decision to set up a casualty clearing station on the concourse area of Victoria station.

Lord Kerslake added the story of the response was "overwhelmingly positive".

Further discussing the actions of the fire service in the aftermath of the Manchester Arena attack, Lord Kerslake said firefighters "wanted to get involved but were held back".

"The discipline of the fire service meant they couldn't decide to self-deploy," he said.

He added that firefighters' presence in the arena foyer would have helped the police, paramedics and volunteers there and their professional skills, including their first-aid knowledge, would have been beneficial.

Lord Kerslake has said he was "shocked and dismayed" at the actions of sections of the media after hearing the accounts of hundreds of families affected by the Manchester Arena attack.

He said they spoke of being "hounded", "a lack of respect", and of "sneaky" attempts to take photos when families were receiving bad news.

"To have experienced such intrusive and overbearing behaviour at a time of such enormous vulnerability seemed to us to be completely and utterly unacceptable," he said.

He recommended the Independent Press Standards Organisation should review the operation of its code in light of the families' experiences.

The report into the emergency response to the Manchester Arena attack found British Transport Police (BTP) arrived at the scene of the bombing within minutes of hearing the explosion.

Image source, PA

BTP officers arrived at the site at 22:31, two minutes before Greater Manchester Police received their first call reporting the blast.

A timeline of events show the first paramedic arrived at the nearby Victoria station at 22:42, closely followed by the arrival of an armed police response inside the arena's foyer.

By 22:49, 12 ambulances had arrived to treat some of the victims, who were then moved from the arena to a casualty treatment area in the station.

The initial emergency response continued overnight, with the first three fire engines arriving at the scene at 00:37.

By 02:46, all those injured had been transported from the scene.

The inquiry into the emergency response to the Manchester Arena attack "grappled long and hard" with the question of the lack of firefighters on the ground in the aftermath of the bombing.

Lord Kerslake said it "was quite extraordinary" that this should have happened.

He added: "I think this was an issue of operational culture."

Lord Kerslake is reading from the major areas of learning in the report into the emergency response to the Manchester Arena attack at a press conference.

He said Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service "didn't arrive at the scene for nearly two hours".

He added that there was a combination of poor communication and procedures.

Speaking after the publication of the Kerslake Report, its author has said the Manchester bombing was an "event " none of those involved in emergency planning had encountered before.

Lord Kerslake said it was "deadliest attack" in the UK since the 7 July 2005 bombings.

He said the response of the families left bereaved by the bombing to Lord Kerslake's inquiry had a "profound impact" on his report.

He added that the way they had contributed to his inquiry was "truly humbling".

A number of key findings have been published in the 226-page Kerslake Report, including a Greater Manchester Police duty inspector in the force control room declared Operation Plato, a pre-arranged plan in the face of a suspected marauding armed terrorist, and wrongly assumed others were aware.

Image source, Various

It found a senior Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) officer "stuck to rules", keeping emergency responders 500m (1,600ft) away from any suspected zone of danger.

It said it was "fortuitous" the NWAS was not informed, otherwise it may have pulled out paramedics who instead stayed and "lives were saved".

The panel, chaired by former head of the civil service Lord Kerslake, also found:

• Four British Transport Police officers who had been on duty at Victoria station - which is connected to the arena - arrived at the scene within 30 seconds of the blast
• However, agencies failed to share information effectively following the declaration of the incident as a terror attack
• Communication with the families of the dead and injured was affected by the "complete failure" of a telephone system supplied by Vodafone, leaving many frantically searching hospitals for their relatives
• Some bereaved families felt it took too long for them to be told of their loved ones' deaths
• Families felt "hounded" by the media, with reports of a "scrum" of journalists outside hospitals
• Children from two families were offered condolences by reporters at their homes before the deaths had been officially confirmed
• Hospital staff were offered £2,000 to speak to the press by way of a note hidden in a tin of biscuits

Read the full report here, external.

Firefighters who heard the Manchester Arena bomb go off were sent away from the scene despite a paramedic arriving within 11 minutes, the Kerslake Report has said.

Image source, PA

The report into the emergency response to the Manchester Arena attack on 22 May 2017 found fire crews "stuck to the rules" for a suspected active terrorist but it was "fortuitous" paramedics were not kept away.

As a result, "out of the loop" fire crews were delayed by two hours before joining emergency efforts.

The report also found "poor communication" between emergency services in the aftermath of the attack, which killed 22 people and injured hundreds more.

Lord Kerslake was asked to chair an independent review into the response to the Manchester Arena attack by Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.

Twenty-two people were killed when Salman Abedi detonated a suicide bomb following an Ariana Grande concert on 22 May 2017.

Who is Lord Kerslake?

• Robert Walter Kerslake is a former head of the civil service
• He was named in a national newspaper's list of the 100 most influential people in the public sector in 2003
• In 2015, the former chief executive of Sheffield City Council was made a life peer

Twenty-two people were killed when Salman Abedi detonated a bomb at Manchester Arena.

The youngest victim was eight-year-old Saffie Rose Roussos, from Lancashire, and the eldest was Jane Tweddle-Taylor, 51, from Blackpool.

Image source, Family handouts

Read more about the 22 victims here.