Improvements made to police call handling service to reduce waiting times

NORTH YORKSHIRE Police has introduced a raft of measures to improve its emergency number service following “unprecedented” rise in the number of calls.

The county’s force control room saw an increase in 999 calls from 4,911 during January to 8,551 in August, while the non-emergency 101 number was called 24,017 during August, which has risen from 21,045 in January.

A number of changes have now been introduced to in an effort to improve the service and reduce call waiting times.

The changes include the introduction of an operator service, which sees callers now able to hold to speak to someone if they are unsure which department they require or have a general question. A call-back facility has also been brought in on the nonemergency line. And earlier this month, Crime Recording and Occurrence Management (CROM) administrative tasks were removed from the force control room and are now carried out by a separate department to allow staff to focus on calls.

In addition, longer-term projects to introduce changes in working practice will be implemented in the new year. In the first quarter of 2018, the force will be upgrading its command and control system with a more modern version. During the first half of 2018, a phased roll-out of operational mobile devices will see a gradual reduction in requests for people, vehicle, and address checks from front-line officers, as the new devices will allow them to conduct their own checks on the spot.

Deputy Chief Constable Lisa Winward said: “We acknowledge that our call handling speeds have dropped following a dramatic increase in calls to the control room. Earlier this summer, we began a series of changes to deal with the increase in demand and bring call handling times back up to our usual good standard. Some of these changes have now come to fruition and callers are already receiving a better service. We know there is still a long way to go.”