I agree with TC and Torque on this. We were first on the scene of the Morecambe Bay cockling disaster, probably half an hour ahead of the MIL SAR assets; this is the norm with police units - on scene quickly and able to do very little if you go by the book.
The comments about lack of co-ordination are absolutely correct. We had a situation where there were police comms x 3, coastguard and SAR VHF. The air support unit were the only asset able to talk to all three, yet were there primarily to search. When the SAR aircraft turned up it was quickly agreed that we might as well continue to try and co-ordinate because we were able to receive reports from the two forces covering the area. The result was that some calls or search actions must have been missed - an unrealistically high comms workload and an intense search task made that inevitable.
I'd also agree with Malaprop on the TETRA system, though at least if there were some joined up emergency services planning applying TETRA across the board would be a start.