On Sunday 7th September 2025 mobile phones across the UK will leap into life as a second nationwide test of the Government’s emergency alert system gets underway. The alert is due to go out at 3pm and be received simultaneously on all compatible 4G and 5G phones and tablets across the UK.
The last nationwide test was not an unqualified success; with some phones and indeed areas of the country not receiving an alert at all, whilst other phones delivered the alert several hours late. Since then, some tweaks have been made which it is hoped will deliver a more universal alert service. In fact, since that initial test, the alert service has already been deployed on a number of occasions. For example, in February 2024 an alert was sent across the city of Plymouth, containing information about the transportation of a World War II bomb from where it was found to a nearby ferry terminal. And in January 2025 red alerts about the potential dangers of strong winds were issued in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
In the future it is envisaged that the emergency alert system will be used for genuine life-threatening emergencies such as flooding, extreme storms, and wild fires; all of which could constitute a danger to life. The Government is at pains to point out that such alerts will only be sent out by the emergency services or by authorised government departments, agencies and public bodies so they won’t be used or available for more mundane matters.
Using mobile phones to deliver emergency alerts in this way shows just how far our acceptance of this type of technology has come. When the first mobile network was launched in January 1985, who would have envisaged that forty years later we would be using mobiles not just for voice communications but also as recording devices, calendars and diaries, as conduits to a world wide web of information, and now as potential life savers.
Whilst it is hoped that emergency alerts appearing on our phones will be few and far between, mobile phones can also act as delivery points for other alerts which may be less important in the overall scheme of things but equally of importance to the individual.
The health sector, for example, has been successfully delivering appointment reminders via SMS text for a number of years. Delivered automatically as part of an online booking system, SMS text messages can be a simple way of helping to improve attendance rates for health and other appointments. Not only do SMS texts act as a visible reminder of the appointment, the receipt of the reminder can also act as a prompt for individuals to cancel if they are no longer able to attend. This in turn enables the health practice to fill vacant appointment slots rather than have them go to waste.
Optimising appointment scheduling in this way could help health practices to run more efficiently; making the best use of available resources for the benefit of both patients and the practice.