The Royal Gibraltar Police (RGP), Gibraltar Health Authority (GHA) and Gibraltar Fire and Rescue Service (GFRS) have announced that, with effect from Monday 18 March, there will just be one Emergency number for all three services 999.

This single number will replace the numbers that have been in use for many years:

• 190 for Fire and Ambulance
• 199 or 112 for Police

From Monday 18 March onwards, when someone calls 999, they will hear an automatic reply which will provide them with three options:

• Press 1 for Police
• Press 2 for Ambulance
• Press 3 for Fire

An RGP spokesman said: “It is our aspiration that, in the not-too-distant future, all emergency calls will be handled by a single, unified Control Room… but we are not quite there yet.”

For the time being:

Option 1 will go direct to Royal Gibraltar Police and Option 3 will go direct to the Fire Service.

During the next few weeks, Option 2 for Ambulance will continue to be answered via the Fire Service but then a direct line to the GHA will become operational. 

Once that has happened, Option 2 calls will go direct to Ambulance dispatchers at the GHA.

In order to inform as many people as possible of the new 999 number, advertisements have been placed in the local newspapers and GBC will publicise the new number on TV and radio. 

Posters, some in Spanish, will be placed in public buildings, in buses and at construction sites.

The Chamber of Commerce and the Gibraltar Federation of Small Businesses have agreed to inform their members of the change.

The main providers of telephone services have been advised of the change but commercial entities who use any other lines (such as PSTN, PBX, VoIP/SIP etc) should ensure that their systems are able to call the new 999 emergency number.