Nicole Elèce Roberts
BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Public Services
Unit 14 - Responding to Emergency Service Incidents
P1, P2, P3, P4, M1, D1
Introduction
In this assignment, I will be covering 6 criterias which are P1, P2, P3, P4, M1 and D1 for unit
14, responding to emergency service incidents. I will be talking about incident grading, the importance
of responding safely to emergency incidents as an emergency response driver, identifying the
statutory and voluntary agencies, the roles and responsibilities of the key services and the inter-
agency cooperation of the emergency response services.
Some emergencies are more serious than others and more visible than others such as natural
disasters. Major incidents are large-scale emergency incidents, however someone falling off a ladder
can still be classed as an emergency. The government define emergencies through the Civil
Contingencies Act (CCA, 2004) as war or terrorism that threatens any serious damage to security, a
situation or an event that threatens serious damage to human welfare or a situation or an event that
threatens any serious damage to the environment. All emergency incidents that happen are graded
by call handlers who are very experienced.
P1 - Describe how emergency incidents are graded by a selected public service call centre.
The emergency service which are the Police, Ambulance and Fire Service, are duty-bound to
respond to all incidents that are emergency situations. As they are different services, they have
different roles and responsibilities meaning that their incident grading response policies are different.
All emergencies are graded by the call handler who listening to the information given by the caller and
not by the way that the incident is reported. If an individual calls 999 with genuine belief that the
incident they are calling about is an emergency, the call handler will assess the information given and
they may decide that the incident isn’t a priority or that the incident doesn’t require an emergency
response.
Police
The grading of incidents I will be talking about for the Police are based on England and Wales
in the United Kingdom. The responses are graded in accordance with the National Call Handling
Standards which was published by the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers. All
incidents are graded as either ‘emergency’ or ’non-emergency’ in four different grades.
Grade 1 - Emergency
The type of incident for a grade 1 emergency would be an incident that is taking place and if
there’s a risk of serious injury to an individual and/or serious damage to property, if there’s danger to
life or the use or immediate threat of use of violence.
It’s a grade 1 emergency when it comes to criminal conduct when it involves a crime which is
likely to be serious or in progress, when an offender has just been disturbed at the scene or when an
offender has been detained and poses, or is likely to pose a risk to other individuals.
It’s a grade 1 emergency when it comes to traffic collision when the road is blocked or there’s a
dangerous or excessive build up of traffic or if it involves or is likely to involve serious personal injury.
An incident can also be graded as grade 1 emergency if the call handler has strong and
objective reasons to believe that the incident should be classified as an emergency.
Grade 2 - Priority
An incident is graded as grade 2 priority if the call handler acknowledges that the incident
