If you're a Coastguard Rescue Officer, you already know the routine: when your availability changes, you let Alerting and Tasking know. It's how HM Coastguard keeps track of who can turn out and who's on a shout. It works — but it means remembering codes, and it sits apart from the tools your team uses day to day.
We built iRescue to give search-and-rescue crews a clearer picture: who's available tonight, who's responding to this tasking, and where they are. The last thing we wanted was for officers to keep that picture up to date in two places. So we've connected the two — iRescue now works alongside HM Coastguard's Alerting and Tasking system.
How Alerting and Tasking works today
Alerting and Tasking is the system HM Coastguard uses to mobilise rescue teams and keep track of where everyone stands — available or off, then responding, delayed, on scene or standing down. In practice an officer signals that by sending a short status message from their phone, with a different code for each status to remember. It's reliable, but it's one more thing to do, in one more place, often while you're trying to get out of the door.
What iRescue brings
iRescue gives the whole team a live view that status messages alone can't: availability at a glance, the run forming in real time as people respond, distance and bearing to the incident, station chat, and mobilisation alerts that cut through silent mode. It's the everyday tool — and the natural place for an officer to set their status in the first place.
Bringing the two together
Here's how the integration works. When you change your status in iRescue — booking on, booking off, or updating where you are on a tasking — iRescue offers to send the matching update to Alerting and Tasking for you. One tap to confirm, and the right status goes through. You don't have to remember any codes; iRescue already knows which one matches the status you've just set.
It covers the updates that matter: your availability — on and off — and your responding status as a tasking unfolds: responding, delayed, on scene, or not responding. Set it once in iRescue, send it on with a tap, and the official picture stays in step with the one your crew can see.
Why we built it this way
A few deliberate choices sit behind that simple tap:
- It's sent from your phone. The update goes from your own registered number — the one Alerting and Tasking already recognises — not from a server in the middle. That keeps the chain simple and the identity right.
- You stay in control. iRescue prompts; you confirm. Nothing is sent silently on your behalf, so you always know exactly what has gone through.
- It complements, it doesn't replace. Alerting and Tasking stays the system of record for HM Coastguard. iRescue simply makes keeping it current effortless — one status update instead of two.
Setting it up
The integration is enabled per team. A station administrator switches it on in iRescue and adds the team's Alerting and Tasking number; from then on, every officer on that station gets the one-tap prompt whenever they change their status — no setup needed on each individual phone.
If you run a Coastguard rescue team and you'd like to try it, we'd love to help you get going. Get in touch at hello@ifireapp.net.