The National Relay Service (NRS) is making a small change to Voice Relay to improve the handling of emergency calls, which will enable the NRS to answer emergency calls from Voice Relay users even more quickly.
If you can hear but other people sometimes can't understand you over the phone, then Voice Relay through the NRS is a great way to make a phone call. With Voice Relay, a Relay Officer will respeak your words if the other person can't understand what you say.
If you use Voice Relay, you will now hear a recorded message asking you to press one (1) to make an emergency call.
It is very important to only make emergency calls in a real emergency where you need urgent help from the police, fire or ambulance services. When you make an Voice Relay emergency call through the NRS, the NRS relay officer will connect your emergency call to Triple Zero (000) and stay on the line, respeaking your words to the Emergency Services Operator.
What do I need to do?
There are two ways of connecting to Voice Relay through the NRS.
You can either:
- call 1800 555 727 from any kind of phone, OR
- If you have the NRS app installed, you can tap to select Voice Relay as your call type and then tap Connect with a relay officer.
Whichever way you choose to connect to the NRS using Voice Relay, before connecting with the relay officer you will hear a recorded message asking you to press 1 to make an emergency call.
If you don't want to make an emergency call, but just a normal Voice Relay call, don't press anything, just wait on the line to connect with a relay officer.
Where should I go for more information?
- download the new instruction sheet about making Emergency calls through Voice Relay.
More information about using Voice Relay is on the Service Features page of Accesshub.
The NRS Helpdesk is open Monday to Friday from 8am to 6pm (AEST, excluding national public holidays). You can also leave a message outside these hours and a Helpdesk staff member will get back to you.
There are a number of ways to make contact with Helpdesk staff:
Phone: 1800 555 660
TTY: 1800 555 630
Fax: 1800 555 690
SMS: 0416 001 350
Online: Online form
Email: helpdesk@relayservice.com.au
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