Emergency Response Centre Agency Finland

Emergency Response Centre Agency Finland – Hätäkeskuslaitos

The first link in aid and security in the chain of emergency

The ERC Agency – in Finnish Hätäkeskuslaitos – provides ERC services throughout Finland, excluding the Province of Åland. The task of the ERC Agency is to receive emergency calls from all over the country that fall within the scope of the rescue, police, social and health services, as well as other information relating to the safety of people, property and the environment and to dispatch the tasks related to emergencies to the appropriate authorities or partners.

The Agency manages six Emergency Response Centres (ERCs) providing a unique critical service throughout Finland. Emergency response centres deal with all emergency calls regardless of the service required.

An ERC can dispatch all relevant authorities simultaneously via VIRVE, the joint authorities’ nationwide critical communications network. VIRVE helps authorities and other safety and security operators to communicate efficiently and securely, cooperate across organisational boundaries and safeguard Finnish citizens and visitors to the country.

There is only one emergency number in Finland – 112

No other country has a system like this Finnish model, where the same information system is used to manage a single number for all emergency calls, process the data, supplement with additional information if necessary and alert all required units simultaneously.

Emergency calls are handled based on an operational model whereby the ERC operator guides the caller through risk assessment questions and instructions. At the beginning of the call, this generates information that helps the ERC operator make a quick and correct risk assessment and provide the caller with the appropriate assistance.

All six ERCs in mainland Finland use the ERICA ERC information system. The networked operating model enables the nationwide balancing of congestion during regional peaks. This means that emergency calls may be routed to other ERCs too if the ERC closest to the caller is overloaded or unable to answer for some other reason, such as due to a storm. This way citizens will reach the first link in the help chain from the authorities as soon as possible.