Oversimplifying can create an untrue picture lacking in important detail. However there are times when the opposite is true. Sometimes if there is too much detail, the overall picture is lost.

One particular example is the description ‘Accident and Emergency’ departments at hospitals. The Health Service in the United Kingdom is often overwhelmed with patients, particularly in the winter. Significant resources have been put into trying to direct patients away from Accident Emergency. Many could be dealt with at their doctor’s or even self help using the internet. Another simple option, is to change the name ‘Accident and Emergency’ to ‘Emergency’.

Desperate calls went out to the public recently, imploring patients to only attend ‘A and E’ if it is an emergency. How much easier this request would be if the department is simply called, ‘Emergency’, because that is what it is.

The adage of the word ‘Accident’ is probably historical going back to the days when professionals like solicitors and doctors used strings of meaningless words to baffle and impress. But when you examine what an accident is, it could be all sorts of things – of varying urgency. A child may fall over accidentally and graze a knee; not urgent. Or a farmer may fall into a combined harvester; urgent. Accident is a redundant word because it allows the non-urgent through the doors, with the urgent. This criticism does apply to the use of the word ’emergency’ as it is just what it says and is exactly what the department is set up to deal with.

So to save a bit of departmental cash, reduce the trolley waiting, reduce the queues of ambulances, reduce the pressure on health service staff, and present patients more speedily with an appropriate outcome – let’s have ‘Emergency Departments’ in hospitals. It’s  a small change but it might help focus the minds of the public who are at present either confused or trying to exploit the system and get treatment more quickly than seeing a local Doctor.

I have a similar suggestion to offer to the ‘Fire and Rescue’ service in the United Kingdom. I think this is another example of using two words when one would do. Again, the verbiage evolved historically from what was originally a service to put out fires. Residents would take out insurance and place a disc on the front of their house representing their insurance provider. When the house caught fire, the company sent along a carriage and men equipped to extinguish the fire.

In the present day, I would argue it is time to re-assess what the ‘Fire Service’ does. Most of it’s call outs are to road traffic collisions. It’s task is to help cut out victims from the wreckage, put out or prevent fire and explosion and contain any hazardous material.

But if a vehicle enters a river or lake, the Fire and Rescue service have no means to swim or dive. They have been known in the past to use their breathing apparatus designed to prevent smoke inhalation to go under water, but I expect this is no longer allowed. What this means is that the rescuers cannot rescue.

Similarly, persons needing help in extreme environments, like mountains or coastlines, have to be dealt with by specialist teams like Mountain Rescue, Coastguard and RNLI lifeboats. These organisations are partially governmental and part run by volunteers. Surely, it is time for all of the organisations involved in rescue, to pool resources and work together.

Most firemen and women are young and fit and quite able to walk up a mountain with a stretcher and carry a casualty off the mountain – with appropriate leadership skills and persons with detail local knowledge working in the rescue team.

I once asked a senior fire officer how many fires he had attended in a year. His area of responsibility was an average sized town in Surrey, England. The answer was four! For this reason many fire stations are manned by ‘retained’ personnel, who work part time.

The retained fire station in the town I used to live in, burnt down because it did not have a fire alarm system!

I think it is time for the Fire and Rescue Service to be given greater scope and responsibility. No more long breakfasts, Playstation marathons and night shifts spent in bed. Time to rewrite the aim of the service. I believe that there is no better word to describe it’s broadest function which is  ‘rescue’.

We have all enjoyed watching Thunderbirds operating ‘International Rescue’. Any rescue, anywhere and the puppet team were deployed in a suitable rocket to deal.

If the United Kingdom had a national ‘Rescue Service’, the disparate teams of specialists would be brought together. Their remit will be to rescue, whether from a burning building, a lake, a mountain, underground, at the scenes of civil disaster like earthquakes or shipping disasters. In the latter case teams could even be offered to help other nations at times of extreme and urgent need.

In this process, the skills and courage of present Fire and Rescue personnel will be challenged to reach new heights and create full time, full-on employment. The voluntary organisations will work with them as attachments to the Rescue Service teams with their specialist skills.

Here then are two examples where the ‘job title’ of organisations is holding them back from what they do best. With shorter names and sharper aims, more will be achieved by professionals and volunteers, doing what they do best.