Northumbria Police answers 1,200 calls in 12 hours between New Year's Eve and New Year's Day

Police call handlers who helped keep the public safe over a busy New Year’s Eve have been praised after all 999 calls were answered within four seconds.
Northumbria Police took more than 1,200 calls in just 12 hours.Northumbria Police took more than 1,200 calls in just 12 hours.
Northumbria Police took more than 1,200 calls in just 12 hours.

Leading Northumbria Police officers have praised the hard work of the force’s staff over one of the busiest periods of the year after they answered more than 1,200 calls in just 12 hours.

While there was a reduction in the number of non-emergency calls there were some exceptions, including a person who wanted to report themselves for being drunk and disorderly - inside their own home.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Between 7pm on New Year’s Eve and 7am on New Year’s Day, the force received 834 emergency 999 calls and 388 non-emergency 101 calls; a total of a total of 1,222.

Despite it being a busy night, all 999 calls were answered within four seconds. Northumbria Police’s target is 10 seconds.

Chief Superintendent Neil Hutchison, of Northumbria Police’s Communications Department, thanked the public for working alongside the force, enabling his teams to provide assistance to those who most need it.

In a statement, released on Thursday, January 2, he said: “This is always one of the busiest nights of the year for our control handlers and we usually see a spike in calls.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“We would like to thank the public for their constant support and patience with us during the busy festive period.

“We are pleased to report we only received a small handful of inappropriate calls and that freed us up to deal with those who genuinely needed our assistance.

“The last thing we want is for people to have to wait on the phone to speak to one of our call handlers.

“Hundreds of calls come into our communications centres every day and we want to be able to deliver an outstanding service to everyone who gets in touch.

“We hope that the public can work with us so that we can make sure those people unfortunate enough to be involved in serious incidents can receive police assistance as quickly as possible.”