Emergency Service - Main Emergency Service Functions

Main Emergency Service Functions

There are three main emergency service functions:

  • Police — providing community safety and acting to reduce crime against persons and property
  • Fire department (fire and rescue service) — providing firefighters to deal with fire and rescue operations, and may also deal with some secondary emergency service duties
  • Emergency medical service — providing ambulances and staff to deal with medical emergencies

In some countries (e.g. the UK) these three functions are performed by three separate organisations in a given area. However there are also many countries where fire, rescue and ambulance functions are all performed by a single organisation.

Emergency services have one or more dedicated emergency telephone numbers reserved for critical emergency calls. In some countries, one number is used for all the emergency services (e.g. 911 in the US, 999 in the UK). In some countries, each emergency service has its own emergency number.

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