Really just an idea that popped into my mind, browsing the forums as i write this so thought i might as well post it. Don't think it really fits into the group/business proposal area of the forums as it's not a proposal that i'm fully putting forward, just a subject of general conversation.

As i'm sure most of us are aware, the three emergency service groups; The DEPD, the hosptial and the fire department have always, overall, struggled to stay active with a present and involved leadership. The DEPD has done best out of this, having a solid leadership right up until Nadir had the sim (i don't think me leaving at the time helped, a decision i later came to regret), the DEMH has had a sporadic history of activity and working leadership and the DEFD or fire department has never really got off the ground, i believe the current and seemingly mothballed one is the second incarnation of such a group on sim and neither have ever had much of an impact in the sim.

So i thought that perhaps it might be prudent and successful to have one set of leaders for all groups?

As i think about it now i'd think it would work like this:

We have the four groups, the DEPD's, The DEMH, The DEFD and The DE Emergency Services. We could keep each group for the day to day running of each service, the DEPD notice system is heavily used for example and giving doctors. nurses and fire fighters all the arrest warrants, OOC notices, crime reports etc... from the DEPD would just be spam and run the risk of metagaming occouring. So each group would be used for things specific to each service whilst the DE Emergency services group would be the main admin and cross communication group.

I see a few benefits in this; i think the GM's and staff can keep a closer eye and hold on the services through one group, having one set of leader(s) means that we won't have the situation where, for example, like we have now of the DEPD becoming quite acvite again and with me and Eph 'in the driving seat' well looked after admin-y wise, while the other groups seem to be in a bit of a limbo and this (especially with the DEMH) causes a bit of unbalance in the RP potential (you can be arrested but you can't rely on a paramedic coming to fix you up?), with one set of people in control, i'd think two for the three people plus the GM's there''s more control on the actuall people running the groups and for the organistion of RP's that would require two or more of the services.

One big benefit i can see is that, with all three groups held under one admin chain it might be possible for members to be available for all roles, be it police officer, paramedic, doctor or firefighter, when the need arises. A lot of the time, when the DEPD respond to a 911 call the RP may also require the attendance of a paramedic and as far as i can see, 100 percent of the time none are available. If members could take any role for when needed then instead of having three officers responding it could be come two and one paramedic.

Realism wise there's RL precedent, especially in the US (not so in the UK) that fire services also form the ambulance service with firefighters and paramedics cross trained in each job and i think with a little artistic license you could extend that in DE to include police officers to (perhaps with others moving into the role of police officers taking on the role of 'Community officer' a scheme ran in britain of a volunteer police force to back up the regular one, though with not as much power. Or 'Incident officers' trained just enough to go into situations to deal with them and perform an arrest). We could use the tag system in the DE Emergency services group so all 911 members have the abillity to 'wear any role'.

The member taking on the role of admin could be an IC role to, emeregency services director or some fancy title like that, backed up and helped out by the GM's OOC'ly.

To me it seems to be a way forward to inject some activity into the emergency services and help ensure better coverage and responses to 911 RP's as well as improve the communication and cross RP posssibillites. And you could base the FD out of the hospital or police station.... come on Nadir...Eph... Kait... doesn't the possibillity of saving on prims make you go all gooey and warm inside? 😛