Essex Police say only 20 per cent of 999 calls are an 'emergency'

New data from the national site for policing in the UK has revealed the average times it took for 999 calls to be transferred from BT to each police force.

Lincolnshire Police had the quickest response time with an average of seven seconds while Essex Police was ranked 32 with a response time of 13.46.

The Met, in comparison, was ranked 39 with a time of 16.62 seconds.

At second-to-last was Wiltshire Police at 19.69 while last and at 44th was Bedfordshire Police with an average time of 30.33 seconds – meaning they took more than half a minute to respond.

GB News compiled the data which was weighted by claims.uk.

Data - Essex Police said the 13 second average was for This is an average answering time for 328,305 999 calls over the last recorded 11 months (Image: Essex Police)

An Essex Police spokesman said: "The latest figures from Digital Public Contact show an average answering time for 999 calls to be 13.28 seconds.

“This is an average answering time for 328,305 999 calls, made to us between March 2023 and February 2024. Following commitment to improve this, figures for April show that Essex Police’s answering time was 11.35 seconds.

“We are committed to answering all calls as quickly as possible but we need the public’s help.”

“On average, only 20 per cent of all 999 calls made to us last year required an immediate, emergency response and we encourage the public to only call 999 if they need to report a genuine emergency.

“If a report is not an emergency, it can be reported online. This ensures that 999 calls can be answered as quickly as possible to those who require an emergency response.

"Our Contact Centre operators receive just under 900 emergency 999 calls a day on average and every one of these calls is prioritised based off the threat, harm, and risk to the public."