Audit no. P/24/005/KAP
The emergency notification system operating in Poland for 11 years now is neither consistent nor fully functional, according to NIK. Despite solutions being employed, there are still significant drawbacks in using and implementing modern technologies that could shorten the time of reaching the persons who need help.
The regulations adopted in 2013 were to enable automatic redirection of calls from 997 (Police), 998 (State Fire Service) and 999 (State Emergency Medical Services) to a common emergency phone number for the entire European Union - 112, no matter if the caller needed medical assistance, was a victim of a robbery or a witness to a fire. It was the operators on duty in 17 Emergency Notification Centres (ENC) located throughout the country who were to assess the reports and notify relevant services.
According to the European Commission, 112 already handles 92% of calls to emergency numbers in Poland. Why not all of them? After the call forwarding from 997 and 998 numbers was implemented by the end of 2023, from 1 January 2024, it was also supposed to apply to 999. However, contrary to the laws in force at the time, the then Minister of Health decided that calls to the ambulance services would not be redirected to 112. He said he was concerned about extended call handling time and the risk of problems in case of a system failure.
However, the NIK audit did not confirm serious risk of such failures. On the other hand, the data on the average call handling time used by the Minister of Health was inconsistent with the data of the Ministry of the Interior and Administration. Explanations of the latter also showed that some activities performed by 112 operators are repeated by medical dispatchers after the call is forwarded to them, e.g. they verify the address data of the person calling for help for the second time, which extends the total call handling time.
Instead of enabling emergency calls to be redirected to 112, successive ministers of health in 2019-2024 expanded their own independent system for handling calls sent to 999, and also started legislative work on an amendment to the Act on State Emergency Medical Services, so that the system could function separately. The Sejm amended the regulations in March 2025, under which the handling of calls from 999 was excluded from the uniform emergency notification system for the emergency number 112.
The ENS is not fully functional, either. For over a decade, successive ministers responsible for internal affairs have not made sure that the system will be able to receive SMSes sent to 112 without a special application Alarm112. This is a significant barrier, especially for the deaf and hard of hearing and for persons who are unable to communicate by voice in an emergency situation, e.g. for fear of their safety.
NIK also points out that Poland is the only country in the European Union that has still not implemented the AML (Advanced Mobile Location) technology. This technology is based on GPS data and enables determining with high precision the location of the person calling for help – up to 5 meters outside and on average 25 meters in buildings. In the audited period, the 112 emergency caller location system was based on data from mobile telephony base stations but the measurement was not precise enough and the margin of error could be as high as several kilometres.
On the other hand, the audit carried out by NIK in 10 emergency notification centres handling the number 112 showed that in 2022-2024 (until the end of August) there was a noticeable improvement in the call handling efficiency. The average waiting time for the emergency number operators to answer a call in individual ENCs has been significantly reduced. The biggest improvement was recorded in Łódź – from 12.12 seconds to 10.63 seconds, as well as in Wrocław – from 13.14 seconds to 11.89 seconds. The average waiting time for the emergency number operator to receive a call is about 9 seconds, which places our country in the middle of the ranking of EU countries.
The majority of calls in the emergency notification system in the audited ENCs was directed to the police – approx. 49%, to the ambulance service – approx. 43-44%, and to the fire service – approx. 6-7%. The most common calls for help concerned:
- pain – approx. 19% of all interventions,
- road transport – approx. 19%,
- malaise – from about 17% to over 18%,
- disturbances of public order – approx. 14%,
- home interventions – almost 12%.
Unfortunately, false reports remain a huge problem, as they can overload the system and extend the response time to real threats. In 2023, they accounted for almost 69% of all calls forwarded to 112. Nevertheless, as many as four out of 10 audited emergency notification centres did not send reports the law enforcement bodies in any of these cases, and the others only to a limited extent.
The time taken to handle the call by the ambulance service, police and fire service is also important, counted from sending the ENC report to the dispatcher of a given service until the rescue unit reaches the scene. From January 2022 to the end of August 2024, in case of the fire service, the average time ranged from approx. 18.42 minutes to approx. 20.3 minutes, in case of the police it was from 21.7 minutes to 23.7 minutes, and in case of the ambulance service from 20.4 minutes to 17.4 minutes.
Recommendations
To the Minister of the Interior and Administration e.g. to:
- conduct, in cooperation with the Minister of Health, an analysis of the total handling time of a call forwarded to the number 112 by emergency number operators and dispatchers of the State Emergency Medical Services, and then to implement changes in the procedure for handling emergency calls in the ENC and in the SEMS, to prevent repeated collection of the same data by 112 operators and SEMS dispatchers;
- adapt the ENS to receive and handle SMSes sent to the emergency number 112 without the need to use additional applications such as Alarm112.
To the Minister of Health e.g. to:
- conduct, in cooperation with the Minister of the Interior and Administration, an analysis of the total handling time of a call forwarded to the 112 number by 112 emergency number operators and dispatchers of the State Emergency Medical Services, and then implementing changes in the procedure for handling emergency calls in the State Emergency Medical Services, to prevent repeated collection of the same data by 112 operators and SEMS dispatchers.
To the Minister of Digital Affairs e.g. to:
- take action, with the participation of the President of the Office of Electronic Communications, to accelerate the implementation of AML technology in Poland before 2027, in order to implement the exact location of the person reporting the incident to 112 as soon as possible.
