Northamptonshire Police ranks sixth in the country for how quick handlers answer 999 calls, new data reveals

The latest figures for the quickest UK police forces at answering the phone have been revealed – and Northamptonshire ranks highly.

Research from people's search engine Radaris analysed the most recent data from Police.uk to determine how long it took to answer emergency calls.

Northamptonshire Police ranks sixth out of 45 police forces in the UK, answering 91 percent of the 11,111 calls it received in November 2023 in under ten seconds. Forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland aim to answer 90 percent of 999 calls within ten seconds.

The data shows call answering, which time is the time taken for a call to be transferred from BT to a force, and the time taken by that force to answer the call.

A Northamptonshire Police spokeswoman said: “Our staff in the force Control Room work really hard 24/7 to ensure that all emergency calls are answered as quickly as possible.

“When people call us on 999, it is often because they are having one of the worst days of their lives. We know that every second counts in these situations and we aim to do everything we can to try and get them help as quickly as possible.

“It’s great to see us rank highly in this area and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of our call handlers, dispatchers and officers who work in the Force Control Room for the dedication and commitment they demonstrate every day.

“Finally, this also provides us with an opportunity to remind people not to misuse the 999 system. It is only for true emergencies where a crime is in progress or there is an immediate threat to life. When it’s not an emergency issue, please call us on 101.”

Greater Manchester Police ranked first, answering 93.90 percent of 44,491 calls in under ten seconds. Whilst, The slowest police force for answering emergency calls is Dorset Police. Out of a total 9,880 calls, 75.10 per cent of them were answered in less than 10 seconds.

Find the full list of statistics here.