UK Emergency Service to Accept SMS Alerts

The UK's West Midlands Police is launching an SMS based service for the deaf, hard-of-hearing and speech impaired, to help them contact the police in an emergency. The new service follows a survey carried out with the Birmingham Institute of the Deaf (BID), which showed 98% of hearing impaired people use SMS text messaging, and 85% would like to use the service to contact the police.

Max Corney, IT communications manager, said the existing methods of contacting the police were clearly unsuitable for the deaf, hard-of-hearing and speech impaired, who often they met with frustrations when trying to contact the police or other emergency services. "Most forces offer a Minicom system or similar, but what about those instances where the person is out and about and witnesses a crime or serious road traffic collision and needs to contact us urgently? Minicom and similar systems only provide limited flexibility, unlike text messaging. We hope that by offering text messaging we can provide a quality service to a large group of people who, in the past, have had real difficulty in making contact with their local police."

A number of police forces throughout the country have already shown interest in the new service and it is likely to be expanded to other areas of the UK in the future.

A spokesman for West Midlands Fire Service said: "The easier it is to contact the emergency services, the more effective we can be. However, with this service there may be a delay of a few minutes in the emergency message reaching Fire Control. Fire can take hold very quickly, and so this service should only be used if there is no other way of contacting the fire brigade."

Application forms will be available from local deaf centres and associations. The service is only available to pre-registered users who complete an application form and only works in the area covered by the West Midlands Police.'"

Posted to the site on 12th July 2002