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'Emergency services' are organisations that deal with varying types of emergency, in order to ensure public safety. The organisation may exist for the sole purpose of dealing with emergencies, or may deal with ad hoc emergencies as they arise as part of their normal duties. Many of these organisations will also be involved with community work to help avoid or detect the emergencies which they are engaged to deal with.
The emergency services available in any given place will be very much dependant on the country and area, and may in some cases also rely on the recipient holding suitable insurance or other surety for receiving the service.

Contents

Core Emergency Services

Secondary Emergency Services

Civil Emergency Services

Location Specific Emergency Services

Working together

See also

Core Emergency Services

There are three services which are almost universally acknowledged as being core to the provision of emergency care to the populous. They would generally be summoned on a dedicated emergency telephone number, reserved for critical emergency calls. They are:

★ 'Fire service' - Providing firefighters to deal with fire and rescue operations

★ 'Police' - Providing community safety and acting to reduce crime against persons and property

★ 'Emergency medical service' - Providing ambulances and staff to deal with medical emergencies

Secondary Emergency Services

There are other emergency services, which are often provided by one of the three core services, but other times provided by a separate body. These include:

★ 'Mountain rescue' teams

★ 'Mine rescue' teams

★ 'Bomb disposal' teams

★ 'Urban search and rescue' teams, also known as ''earthquake rescue'' teams or heavy rescue teams

★ 'Maritime search and rescue' services such as the local coast guard or lifeboat.

★ 'Blood or Organ Transplant Supply' - Organisations who provide organs or blood on an emergency basis, such as the National Blood Service of the United Kingdom

Civil Emergency Services

These are emergency services who deal with emergencies, mostly as an incidental part of their 'day job'.

★ 'Public utility' crews - Safeguarding Gas, Electricity and Water, which are all potentially hazardous if infrastructure fails

★ 'Emergency road service' - A service providing repair or recovery for vehicles which have broken down or been involved in a collision

★ 'Emergency Social Services'

★ 'Community emergency response teams & Certified first responders' - Used for mass emergencies, organising facilities such as rest centres

★ 'Famine relief' teams

Location Specific Emergency Services

Some locations have emergency services dedicated to them, and whilst this does not necessarily preclude individuals using their skills outside this area (or be used to support other emergency services outside their area), they are primarily focused on the safety or security of a given geographical place.

★ 'Park Rangers' - Looking after many emergencies within their given area, including fire, medical and security issues

★ 'Lifeguards' - Charged with reacting to emergencies within their own given remit area, usually a pool, beach or open water area

Working together

Effective emergency service management requires the services to work closely together, and to have open lines of communication. Most services do, or should, have procedures and liaisons in place to ensure this. However, they can sometimes be tension between services, for a number of reasons, including professional versus voluntary crew members, or simply based on area or division.
To aid effective communication, different services may share a common protocol for certain types of emergency, such as a major incident. Commonly used shared protocols include CHALET and ETHANE.

See also

★ Lifeguards

★ Civil Air Patrol (US Air Force Auxiliary)

★ Civil defense

★ Common Alerting Protocol

★ Disaster relief

★ Emergency management

★ Emergency medical service

★ Emergency telephone number

★ Insurance

★ Public Safety

★ Rescue Squad

★ Tow truck