Study reveals Beds Police take longest time to answer emergency calls in UK

Bedfordshire Police has been named as the force that takes the longest to answer emergency calls in the UK, according to a recent study.

The research was carried out by claims.co.uk, with a weighted average reveals that Bedfordshire Police takes 36.1 seconds to respond to emergency calls, according to data from police.co.uk.

But Superintendent Graham Bates, head of public contact at Bedfordshire Police, said that answering emergency calls in a timely manner is ‘hugely important’ to the force and it is an area they are ‘consistently trying to improve’.

He said: “That is why we are currently increasing resources and investing in new technology within the Force Control Room (FCR), including pioneering some really innovative solutions with digital technology. While we are looking to invest in our public contact, the public can really help us by only contacting 999 in an emergency.”

Bedfordshire Police says that a massive 15,573 999 calls were received in May– up from 11,235 the year before. Analysis from the force suggests that over the past year, 11 per cent of 999 calls were about issues that should have been dealt with by other agencies – such as highways issues and abandoned vehicles.

Superintendent Bates continued: “We are also seeing a lot of abandoned 999 calls at the moment, so would ask people to stay on the line on these occasions to confirm they are OK rather than hanging up, as this requires our staff to carry out further checks to ensure the person who called us is actually OK. All of this adds pressure to our already stretched staff in our force control room.”

The response time research analysed the latest available data to find out how long police forces take to answer emergency phone calls, calculating a weighted average for May 2022 to April 2023. The force also had the highest percentage of calls answered at 60 seconds or longer (20.56%).

But a representative from claims.co.uk said: “Even the constabularies with the slowest emergency answer times tend to answer calls as quickly as possible, which only bodes well for the people they promise to serve and protect.”