A fatal house fire in Auckland, New Zealand, was delayed due to a glitch in the outdated and unreliable 111 emergency call system.
The system, responsible for connecting fire and police alerts, has been experiencing frequent outages since 2021, with a significant increase noted in early 2024.
Unfortunately, the 111 call did not go through in this case, and the communication staff did not immediately notice the system failure.
Official documents reveal many issues with fire or police alerts failing to reach the ambulance’s separate alert system.
The InterCAD system encountered 39 problems last year, a dramatic rise from just six in 2021. Police revealed to the media last month that they had made repairs in March to reduce outages, and further changes were implemented after the Hillpark fire.
As a result of the incident, a green error message was proposed during the watch debrief, and it has been added as of 21 May. Fire and Emergency’s perspective is that no additional work is needed in this area, as the review highlighted effective actions taken during the incident and resulted in a change that enhances service delivery.
However, the police-and-fire CARD system supporting 111 calling remains outdated, inflexible, and disconnected from ambulance services. While efforts have been made to patch it up, there are no plans for a replacement in the near future.
A project to implement a modern integrated system across all three emergency services failed to secure funding in Budget 2023.
The previous government deferred the project to the new one, where it currently remains in limbo. The cost of the project has been redacted from OIA papers.
Click to read more New Zealand news.
