Emergency calls to police in Staffordshire have surged by 20% during the past year, it has been revealed – meaning staff are handling around 89 extra 999 calls a day.
Periods of demand have become more unpredictable since the Covid pandemic, police bosses have said, with the average time to answer 999 calls standing at 40.4 seconds in August.
But a report to a police performance meeting said action such as hiring more call handlers and the launch of a new triage service would help improve the service.
“Positive indications have been seen in September 2022 with the percentage of calls answered within ten seconds increasing, and average time to answer is starting to see reductions.
“The latest week saw 73% of 999 calls answered in ten seconds and an average time to answer of 33.6 seconds.”
Report to Staffordshire Police performance meeting
Staffordshire Police’s Chief Constable Chris Noble told the meeting that the pattern of calls being received by the force was unpredictable.
“We used to measure the high water mark of demand as New Year’s Eve – what was the busiest day of the year for contact.
“I asked how our demand in September mapped against the average New Year’s Eve demand and I think we had eight ‘New Years Eves’ in September alone.
“We didn’t know when they were going to arrive, so the challenge around demand isn’t just volume, it’s complete unpredictability.
“A Tuesday evening, maybe caused by an accident on a motorway or a whole raft of other things, puts a massive demand into the system and you can never efficiently resource against that.”
Chief Constable Chris Noble, Staffordshire Police