<P> In 2008--2009, Nottinghamshire Police ran a successful pilot of Pegasus, a database containing the details of people with physical and learning disabilities or mental health problems, who have registered with the force because their disabilities make it difficult for them to give spoken details when calling the police . Those registered on the database are issued with a personal identification number (PIN) that can be used in two ways . By phone--either 999 or the force's non-emergency 101 number can be used--once a person is put through to the control room, they only need to say "Pegasus" and their PIN . Their details can then be retrieved from the database and the caller can quickly get on with explaining why they have called . In person--the Pegasus PIN can be told or shown to a police officer . Pegasus is also used by the City of London Police, Dyfed Powys Police, Surrey Police & Lincolnshire Police . </P> <P> The introduction of push - button (landline, cordless and mobile) telephones has produced a problem for UK emergency services, due to the ease of same - digit sequences being accidentally keyed, e.g., by objects in the same pocket as a telephone (termed' pocket dialling') or by children playing with a telephone . This problem is less of a concern with emergency numbers that use two different digits, such as 112 and 911 although on landlines 112 suffers much of the same risk of false generation as the 111 code which was considered and rejected when the original choice of 999 was made . </P> <P> The pan-European 112 code was introduced in the UK in April 1995 with little publicity . It connects to existing 999 circuits . The GSM standard mandates that the user of a GSM phone can dial 112 without unlocking the keypad, a feature that can save time in emergencies but that also causes some accidental calls . All mobile telephones will make emergency calls with the keypad locked . Originally a valid SIM card was not required to make a 999 / 112 emergency call in the UK . However, as a result of high numbers of untraceable hoax calls being made, this feature is now blocked by all UK networks . Most UK mobile telephone handsets will dial 999 / 112 without a SIM inserted (or with a locked / invalid SIM), but the call will not be connected . Following the blocking of SIM-less calls, in 2009 the UK networks introduced emergency call roaming . This allows a user with a valid SIM of a UK network to make emergency calls on any network for which they have coverage . </P> <P> Silent solution 55 is the name given to the initiative that allows people to call 999 when they aren't able to speak . If there is no answer, the operator will then ask you to cough, or make another audible sign that you're in need of police assistance . If you're in too much danger to make any sound at all, the call will be put through to an automated system which asks the caller to press 55 if they're in danger . </P>

How to call emergency services from a mobile phone uk