Emergency services, urgent care, or a routine appointment?
The question is not how bad it feels. It is how quickly things could get worse.
Call emergency services now
For anything that threatens breathing, circulation or consciousness, for sudden neurological symptoms, for severe bleeding, and for any situation where you would otherwise be considering driving somebody to hospital while frightened. Ambulance crews start treatment on the way, and for heart attack and stroke that time genuinely changes outcomes.
Urgent or same-day care
For problems that need attention today but are not immediately dangerous: a fever with worrying features, a possible fracture, a cut that may need closing, a worsening infection, dehydration, a flare of a known condition that is not responding to your usual plan.
A routine appointment
For symptoms that have been present for weeks and are stable, medication reviews, results, screening, and anything you have been meaning to raise. Stable and long-standing is not the same as unimportant — it is the same as bookable.
When you are not sure
If you are weighing it up and cannot decide, treat that uncertainty as a reason to seek help sooner rather than later. Emergency dispatchers and nurse advice lines are there precisely for this, and nobody will think worse of you for asking.
The patterns that mean call now
Heart attack
Chest pain, pressure, tightness or squeezing lasting more than a few minutes, or going away and coming back. It may spread to an arm, the back, neck, jaw or stomach. It often comes with shortness of breath, a cold sweat, nausea, or light-headedness. Women, older people and people with diabetes are more likely to have symptoms without classic chest pain — unexplained breathlessness, extreme fatigue, or upper-back and jaw discomfort. Call emergency services; do not drive yourself.
Stroke — think BE-FAST
Balance lost suddenly. Eyes: sudden loss or blurring of vision in one or both. Face drooping on one side. Arm weakness, usually on one side. Speech slurred or nonsensical. Time: note when symptoms started and call immediately. Symptoms that resolve do not mean it is over. Brief symptoms that disappear may be a transient ischaemic attack, which carries a high risk of a full stroke in the following days. It still needs emergency assessment today.
Anaphylaxis
A severe allergic reaction: swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, difficulty breathing or noisy breathing, a widespread rash or hives with a feeling that something is very wrong, vomiting, collapse. If an adrenaline auto-injector is available, use it immediately and then call emergency services — adrenaline first, call second. A second reaction can follow hours later, so emergency assessment is needed even if the person improves.
Severe difficulty breathing
Struggling to breathe at rest, unable to speak a full sentence, gasping, blue or grey lips or face, or breathing that is getting rapidly worse. In children, watch for the skin sucking in between or below the ribs, and for grunting.
Uncontrolled bleeding
Bleeding that does not slow after ten minutes of firm, continuous direct pressure, blood that spurts, or a wound where an object is embedded. Keep pressing, do not lift the dressing to look, and call emergency services.
Loss of consciousness
Anyone who has fainted and does not wake quickly and fully, anyone who is unresponsive, and anyone who is confused or drowsy after a head injury. Any loss of consciousness after a head injury, or a headache that worsens afterwards, needs emergency assessment.
Sudden worst-ever headache
A headache that reaches maximum intensity within seconds to a minute, described as the worst of your life, particularly with a stiff neck, vomiting, fever, confusion, or any weakness. This is an emergency and it is not a migraine until someone has ruled out the alternatives.
Suspected poisoning or overdose
Any suspected overdose, any swallowed chemical or unknown medication, and any child who has taken something. In the United States, call Poison Control on 1-800-222-1222 — it is free, confidential and staffed 24 hours a day — or call 911 if the person is unresponsive, having a seizure, or having difficulty breathing. If opioids are suspected and naloxone is available, give it and call 911.
Thoughts of suicide or self-harm
If you are thinking about ending your life, or you are with someone who is, this counts as an emergency and help is available right now. In the United States, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, 24 hours a day. Do not leave someone alone if they are at immediate risk, and remove access to means where you safely can.
What to tell the dispatcher
Stay on the line. The dispatcher is not delaying help — help is usually already being sent while they keep talking to you.
- Where you are. The full address, and the specific detail that gets a crew to the door: floor, flat number, gate code, which entrance, nearest cross street or landmark.
- What has happened, in one sentence. "A 62-year-old man has chest pain and is sweating and pale."
- Whether the person is awake and breathing. This determines everything about the response.
- When it started, as exactly as you can. For stroke, the last time the person was definitely normal is the number that matters.
- Age, and any major medical history — heart disease, diabetes, epilepsy, pregnancy, known allergies, blood thinners.
- A callback number, and then keep that line free.
Then do what they tell you. Dispatchers can talk you through CPR, through using an auto-injector, through controlling bleeding, and through the recovery position, and those instructions are worth following exactly.
What to have ready
Prepared in a calm hour, useful in a bad one.
- A current medication list, including doses, supplements and allergies. The Medication List Builder makes a printable one.
- Your major medical history in a few lines: conditions, past surgery, implanted devices, pregnancy.
- Emergency contacts, written down somewhere other than a locked phone.
- Your address, written by the door — under stress, people genuinely forget it, and someone else may be making the call.
- Any emergency medication where it can be found: an adrenaline auto-injector, a reliever inhaler, glucose, naloxone.
- Advance directives or a care plan, if you have them, somewhere findable rather than filed.
If you have a phone, set up its medical ID and emergency contacts so responders can see allergies and medications from a locked screen.
United States: the numbers to know
| Service | Number | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Emergency services | 911 | Any medical, fire or police emergency. Text-to-911 works in many but not all areas — call if you can, text if you cannot. |
| 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline | Call or text 988 | Suicidal thoughts, mental health crisis, substance use crisis, or worry about someone else. Free, confidential, 24 hours a day. Chat is available at 988lifeline.org. |
| Poison Control | 1-800-222-1222 | Any suspected poisoning, overdose, chemical exposure or medication error. Free, confidential, 24 hours a day, staffed by specialists. |
Save all three in your phone now. The one you will need is the one you did not expect to need.
Outside the United States
Emergency numbers differ by country. If you are not in the US, find and save your local emergency number today rather than looking it up during an emergency — 112 works across the European Union and in many other countries, 999 in the United Kingdom, 000 in Australia, and 111 in New Zealand, but confirm the number where you actually live or are travelling.
Crisis lines are also country-specific. If you are outside the US and in mental health crisis, your local emergency number will connect you to help, and most countries have a national crisis line listed by their health service.