Wiltshire Police takes 12 seconds to answer the 999 call

Wiltshire Police takes an average of 12 seconds to respond to a 999 call, just five seconds slower than the fastest police force in the country.

In January, an improvement plan was put in place to help the force receive calls faster after more than 20% of emergency calls to the force were not answered within the targeted 10 seconds.

Wiltshire Police was recently taken out of special measures after inspectors found it had made “significant improvements”.

Figures from a performance report show the force received more than 123,920 emergency 999 calls in the year to April 2024.

Lincolnshire Police was the fastest force to take a 999 emergency call, but Wiltshire Police, but is significantly faster than the UK’s slowest force, Bedfordshire Police, which takes 30 seconds, the Local Service reports of Democracy Reporting.

Wiltshire Police’s drop-off rate, where the caller disconnects before receiving their call, was 1.7% for the same year.

Meanwhile, the immediate response time was 13 minutes, 11 seconds, and the average time officers spent on the scene was two hours, seven minutes and 59 seconds.

Wiltshire Police was placed in special measures two years ago after it was found to be failing in a number of areas.

This included “ineffective” management and a failure to “understand and promptly identify the vulnerability of victims at the first point of contact”.

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