Improvements to Staffordshire Police’s contact centre have seen the force jump into the top ten in the country for 999 call answering times, a meeting has been told.
More contact centre staff have been recruited and a triage service has been introduced along with an online reporting facility as part of the efforts to respond more quickly to emergency calls.
A police performance meeting this week heard that the changes had made a difference despite increased demand.
Chief Constable Chris Noble said:
“I’m pleased to say that we continue to see improvements in many areas, not least in our force contact centre, which is the first point of contact for people contacting the police.
“From being ranked 23rd in police forces in the percentage of 999 calls answered within our national service level agreement, a year later we’re now sixth in the country, answering 85% of calls within ten seconds.
“This needs to be put into the context that we continue to face rising demand. This summer and early autumn we have faced some of our most challenging levels of demand, with several days topping the number of calls we might expect to see on a typical New Year’s Eve.”
Chief Constable Chris Noble
He told the meeting that while the improvements were welcome, the focus needed to be on prioritising calls rather than just answering them quickly.
“Sadly we’ve still got some challenges around users of the system that shouldn’t be using it – one individual in August called us 253 times.
“Even though we try and answer the phone as quickly as we can, there are peaks and troughs in demand which make it very difficult to be constantly operating at the highest level. With lots of calls to policing we are most definitely not the right agency to respond.
“We will continually invest in the area around bringing new staff in. There is a real interest in joining the contact family, which is critical for us
“New technologies are critical as well in this area. We’re keen to look at how that can work and improve the experience of the public.”
Chief Constable Chris Noble