Wiltshire Police: transformational turnaround in 999 answer times
They've shot up the national league table, having been ranked bottom back in March for the length of time answering emergency calls
Wiltshire Police tell us that meeting the national target for 999 call answer rates for the first time in November is after two years of transformational hard work.
Last month, more than 90 per cent of calls were picked up within 10 seconds - after being ranked the worst in the country back in March.
They add further plans are in the pipeline to make sure they continue improving.
Chief Inspector Allen Lumley, part of the command team for the Contact Centre, told Greatest Hits Radio: “In March this year when we were assessed by HMICFRS our 999 call answer rates were deemed the worst nationally (44th).
"The national target is to answer 90% of calls in under 10 seconds. At that time we were only achieving 77% and an average of 15.4 seconds.
“In November this year, for the first time ever we achieved the national target, hitting 91% and averaging an answer time of 9.3 seconds. Now placed 21st.
“This is due to two years worth of effort by the Contact Management team who have been applying:
- A focus on quality of service delivery through enhanced training and quality assurance audits
- A dynamic operating model designed to flex to incoming demand
- Increased recruitment into vacant posts
- Increased situational awareness for operators and supervisors through the use of technology
- Daily performance oversight and scrutiny
"A sustained focus on putting the caller at the heart of what we do - staying empathetic to each and every caller, despite around 8,000 999 calls for service every single month.
"It has taken a long time to turn around our performance because of the time it takes to embed these things and start to bear the fruit of our hard graft.
"We aren't satisfied with being middle of the table and have further plans in the pipeline that will further enhance our performance and solidify the efforts made this far."
Under the stats, average 101 answer times in March stood at 1 minute and 11 seconds for the switchboard, followed by a further 10 minutes and 54 seconds if you were reporting a crime.
In November they managed to reduce this to 36 seconds and 4m 56 secs on average, halving our previous wait times.