Revealed: How long police forces are taking to answer 999 calls

May 31, 2022

Police forces are routinely failing to answer “life and death” 999 calls within target times, new data shows.

Only one force in the UK – Avon and Somerset Police – is meeting the standard to answer 90% of 999 calls in under 10 seconds.

Forty-three police forces failed to meet it over the six months from November 2021 and April 2022.

Overall, 71% of 999 calls were answered within 10 seconds.

It is the first time national statistics have been published showing how quickly police forces answer 999 calls.

The worst performing force was Humberside Police, with only 2% of calls answered in under 10 seconds.

South Yorkshire Police answered 17% of calls within the target, Durham Police 41%, North Yorkshire Police 44% and Gloucestershire Police 49%.

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Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, and Nottinghamshire police forces fell just below the standard with 89%.

Police Scotland aim to have a mean answering time of under 10 seconds – and recorded 10.1 over the period.

The Home Office said there was a range of reasons for disparities – prank calls, a lag time in connecting, and inappropriate use of 999 to contact police for non-emergencies.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said “the public deserve to know that their local police force will be at the end of the phone, ready to leap into action at seconds’ notice to protect them from harm”.

She said “calling 999 can literally be a matter of life and death” and releasing the data was about “driving up standards in our incredible emergency services” so that people can have “every confidence in the police’s ability to save lives and keep our streets safe”.

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