Using apps to support the world’s emergency services

After developing a new website for JESIP, they asked us to help take it to the next level with the creation of a sustainable tool that could easily reach the many thousands of staff involved in emergency responses.

The idea was to give these key personnel all the information they need about joint working, including reminders about the five principles of joint working and the Joint Decision Model.

They needed to be able to access it quickly at the scene of major incidents and the information had to be clear and easy to understand.

With the JESIP ‘working together’ ethos at the heart of our thinking, we developed the new JESIP App. This free to use app can be downloaded by emergency services personnel on all Apple, Android and Windows-based devices, including mobile phones and tablets.

It gives members of the emergency services easy, instant access to all the crucial information they need to co-ordinate a successful multi-agency response to a major incident. The app format ensures they have it in the palm of their hands, available to access at the swipe of a screen, wherever they are.

We integrated the what3words map functionality, which enables people to quickly and easily pinpoint locations on a map using three words that are easy to say, remember and share. These never change and are as accurate as GPS co-ordinates.

Since its launch in 2015, the app has been downloaded more than 500,000 times and we continue to add more functionality as it develops further. It is now being taken up by emergency services organisations across the world, so we have created new multi-language versions of the app to support its global use and increase capability even more.