Social care emergencies
The Emergency Duty Service (EDS) is available for out of hours social care emergencies at these times:
- Monday to Friday: 5pm to 9am
- weekends: Friday 5pm to Monday 9am
- bank holidays: service runs continually until 9am on the next working day
You can phone the EDS on:
- 01344 351999
The EDS deals with social care referrals which happen out of office hours and are genuine emergencies. They provide support for safeguarding emergencies and crisis issues which happen outside of normal working hours and cannot wait until the next working day.
Non-urgent enquiries and issues should be raised with the relevant local authority social services and housing teams during daytime office hours.
EDS is run on behalf of these 6 Berkshire councils:
- Bracknell Forest
- Reading
- Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead
- Slough
- West Berkshire
- Wokingham
EDS is available to:
- respond to emergencies where immediate social care intervention is required to safeguard a vulnerable adult or child
- provide crisis intervention where there are significant welfare concerns that cannot wait until the next working day
- respond to all statutory emergency referrals to the unitary authorities
- offer single point of access
- undertake initial screening for those individuals who find themselves in need of emergency accommodation
More information
EDS is staffed by skilled screening officers, senior social workers and adult safeguarding officers.
At busy times your call may be held in a queue. All our telephone calls are recorded for quality assurance purposes.