London, 11 June, 2009 – PageOne Communications, the UK’s leading mobile messaging company to the public sector and enterprise today announced that its flare product has been honoured for outstanding achievement in the Best Service category of the national Government Opportunities (GO) magazine Excellence in Public Procurement Awards. PageOne received the award following the delivery of a major public service contract for the provision of mobile communication services to the British Red Cross.

flare is a dedicated suite of incident management products that’s widely recognised by organisations across the private and public sectors as an essential part of successful business continuity planning.  flare streamlines response to a critical incident with a host of built-in features designed to minimise reaction time and maximise efficiency. 

Using flare it is possible to communicate to individuals and groups, with any combination of SMS, email, UK paging, landline, voice or fax. And with a multi-channel response capability including 2-way SMS, WAP and a scaleable voice option, it allows people to be in control of a situation, wherever they are.

The British Red Cross began using flare in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and the Channel Islands following a comprehensive review of response times to calls for assistance from the emergency services and local authorities during major incidents. The flare system allows the British Red Cross to set up Smart Groups in advance so that during an incident, they only have to initiate one message and it cascades to all volunteers quickly and effectively. This reduces the time to initiate calls from minutes to seconds – essential savings in a crisis. In fact the flare system has proved so successful in the South West that the British Red Cross is now looking at setting up a national contract.

Accepting the award, John Blake, Emergency Response Assistant, British Red Cross commented “flare is an invaluable tool and we see our use of it as a first in the voluntary sector. It is vital we respond quickly to crisis situations to enable us to help people in need as fast as possible, flare helps us to do that. What has and continues to impress us about PageOne is their partnership approach and the fact that they have always worked with us, listening to our feedback, to provide a solution that works for us. Both of our organisations have a similar working ethos; plan, do, and review and they are a very deserving recipient of this award”.

Chris Jones, CEO of PageOne Communications added “We are delighted to have received this award for Best Service and it is a great testament to all of the staff here at PageOne who have worked so hard in the development and day to day running of PageOne’s messaging services.”

The prestigious GO Awards ceremony which brings together representatives from local authorities, public services, utilities and community initiatives, was held on Thursday 4 June 2009 at the Institution of Civil Engineers, London,  featuring high-profile speakers Chairman of the Audit Commission Michael O’Higgins and Chief Executive of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), Nigel Smith.