Police News August 09.indd - New Zealand Police Association

PoliceNewsThe Voice of Policegeneral and 111 calls. Wellington took386,000, while Christchurch received theremaining 384,000.All three centres have complete businesscontinuity plans and back-up capability,which means if one of them goes down,the other two centres can compensate bypicking up the overload.Five hundred and thirty-one staff workacross the three centres with rolesconsisting of communicators, dispatchers,section managers, team leaders, shiftcommanders, workforce analysts andadministrative support.Police communicators deal with calls aboutburglaries, family violence, disputes, fightsand disorder, vehicle crashes, armedrobberies, search and rescue operations,homicides, dangerous driving, missingchildren, civil disputes and thefts, to namejust some of the events they respond to.• A communicator takes calls at the Wellington Communications Centre.Communicators find out what’s happeningand where, make the initial assessmentof the priority of the job, enter the detailsinto the computer system and send theinformation through to the dispatchers whoare responsible for getting Police units toattend the incident.The dispatcher’s primary role is to helpco-ordinate the Police response to anemergency.Intercad to allow better emergency services communicationPolice are set to introduce an electronicinformation sharing system called Intercad,which will link Police, Fire and Ambulanceservices.The project, known as Go Live, has beendeveloped over the last 18 months and was dueto go live as this article was being prepared.Currently, Police and Fire have linkingsystems but Ambulance has a separateservice, though they liaise closely inemergency situations.Intergraph (Police /Fire) and SDSI (Ambulance)have been developing a number of technicalsolutions during the life of the project tofacilitate information sharing.StreamliningThe Intercad system will assist through:• A more timely and informativecommunication being sent between thethree emergency services;• An easier method for sending theinformation. The process of "copyingthe event" to send, involves only onekeyboard stroke as opposed to thecurrent system (associate event), whichrequires 11 key strokes;• A verifiable (documented) record ofinformation that is sent;• Encouraging a closer working relationshipbetween the three emergency services;and• Possibly leading to other areas of sharedcommunication processing and capability.Common jargonAnother spin-off of the project will beestablishing a common ‘jargon’ list betweenall three agencies so that incident codes arecommon to all three services.Under the Intercad system, Policedispatchers will be the only ones to dorequests for assistance to the other twoservices. The communicator would enterthe event/incident and forward it to therelevant dispatchers, who would then beresponsible for copying the event to Fireand/or Ambulance.1 2 3 4 5 6 7Clues:Across:2. The forming of an opinion, idea orconclusion (9)8. Say at chicken tasting? (5)9. A marked increase with pendulum (7)10. Had a look around new environment (10)12. A particular period of time (5)14. Japanese food (5)15.Caught baby goat asleep (10)18. Manacles; handcuffs (British slang)19. Ogle at a group of steps (5)20. Swim event (9)July answers:Across:1. Acid3. Educated9. Dilemma10. Mends11. Testimonials13. Offset15. Caddie17. Battlefields20. Micro21. Conquer22. GuessingDown:1. Have too much paperwork in winter more likely?(slang) (2,6,5)2. Throw excess load overboard (8)3. Senior member (5)4. School teachers perhaps? (13)5. Inclined to drink to excess: intoxicated, tipsy. (7)6. Extra time for extra hard work? (4)7. Stole (slang) (13)11. At times ate together, I guess (8)13. Item that holds in place (4,3)16. Insipid looking (5)17. Semi (4)23. ShedDown:1. Audition2. Isles4. Dragon5. Combinations6. Tangled7. Dash8. Ambidextrous12. Censored14. Fiancee16. Beacon18. Laugh19. Smog8 91012 13 1415 161718 192011170August 2009