eircodes

vargoo

Ambulance crews - do your systems support them?

LRNM

Yes.

We use them nearly every day.
Prior to getting MDT we just used autoaddress on our phones to input eircodes.

knucklehead6

what about what3words? Is that used?

dabrisin

Had emergency call out of ambulance lately. I was waiting on my own at the house and eventually got a call from the dispatch saying the crew were having trouble locating me. I explained I had given my eircode to the operator when I made the initial call. She told me they had the eircode but the ambulance crew did not and could I go out to the road to wave them dowm. They were about 6 houses up the road. Very distressing for someone on their own. I thought every ambulance would have been equipped with eircode , not just the dispatcher.

LRNM

knucklehead6 wrote: »

what about what3words? Is that used?

Never heard of it.

dabrisin wrote: »

Had emergency call out of ambulance lately. I was waiting on my own at the house and eventually got a call from the dispatch saying the crew were having trouble locating me. I explained I had given my eircode to the operator when I made the initial call. She told me they had the eircode but the ambulance crew did not and could I go out to the road to wave them dowm. They were about 6 houses up the road. Very distressing for someone on their own. I thought every ambulance would have been equipped with eircode , not just the dispatcher.

Sorry to hear. Not every ambulance in the country is equipped with GPS/MDT but most are at this stage. For the vehicles without MDT then as I said most crews will use their phones for the eircodes.



Eircodes brilliant and get us to the front door of places we've never even heard of on a daily basis.

However some crews, particularly the older in the service longer members won't use their phones at all if they have no MDT. Those kinds of crews are far and few between.



The dispatchers will generally always pass on the eircode. No idea what happened in your situation but I recommend putting in a complaint or a comment on https://www.hse.ie/eng/about/qavd/complaints/ysysguidance/supporting-the-service-user/complaint.html

mr cowen

dabrisin wrote: »

Had emergency call out of ambulance lately. I was waiting on my own at the house and eventually got a call from the dispatch saying the crew were having trouble locating me. I explained I had given my eircode to the operator when I made the initial call. She told me they had the eircode but the ambulance crew did not and could I go out to the road to wave them dowm. They were about 6 houses up the road. Very distressing for someone on their own. I thought every ambulance would have been equipped with eircode , not just the dispatcher.

what part of the country was it, because dublin fire brigade have no capibility to use eircode.

callaway92

Eircodes scattered around my Golf Club, so I always assumed they were used

dabrisin

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I assumed every crew was equipped with eircode. I am located in county wexford and guess I was just unfortunate with the crew that were assigned to me that night

sjb25

dabrisin wrote: »

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I assumed every crew was equipped with eircode. I am located in county wexford and guess I was just unfortunate with the crew that were assigned to me that night

All Wexford(southeast area aswell) crews are all using mdt may have been a Wicklow crew which don’t yet but are being set up now

flended12

knucklehead6 wrote: »

what about what3words? Is that used?

Was involved in an incident few days ago I had to ring emergency services, being unfamiliar to the area I had to give some landmarks etc and eventually sorted the request.

Upon telling above to a friend of mine he said, why didnt you use https://what3words.com/products/what3words-app/

Never heard of it but every 3m square area on the planet has 3 words assigned to it.

For example https://what3words.com/same.icons.grow is the centre point of Croke Park.

I asked 2 family members who are in the emergency services and neither of them ever heard of it.

Has anyone used it before for location accuracy?

Lenar3556

mr cowen wrote: »

what part of the country was it, because dublin fire brigade have no capibility to use eircode.

If the didn’t know where to go but had an eircode would one or other of them not type it into their phone?

RiderOnTheStorm

dabrisin wrote: »

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I assumed every crew was equipped with eircode. I am located in county wexford and guess I was just unfortunate with the crew that were assigned to me that night

There is a good chance that all frontline ambulance have MDTs at this stage, but there are also ICVs used in NAS and they dont have MDTs so have to rely on their phones. As prev poster said, this is crews own personal phone so some don't like using it, or may not be up to date. If all nearby frontline crews are attending calls, sometimes Control will dispatch an ICV.