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Local PSNI district ‘leading the way’ with call-handling service

Thursday, 4 February 2010

PSNI officers and members of Omagh District Policing Partnership (DPP) pictured prior to a meeting in St John’s Business and Enterprise College, Dromore. AN0545

by Julie Moore
PSNI F DISTRICT, comprising of the areas of Omagh, Fermanagh, Dungannon and South Tyrone and Cookstown, is 'leading the way' in terms of call handling, a meeting of Omagh District Policing Partnership (DPP) heard on Thursday night last.
During the meeting, which focused on how the PSNI's 24-hour call handling service has influenced how police officers perform their duties and the impact on the community, DPP members heard that in December 2009, F District received 4,300 calls, with an answer rate of 98.3 per cent.
Introducing the presentation on the call handling system, Inspector David Nickson said: "We as an organisation have changed and evolved drastically over the years and are still changing.
“With the call management system, we are consistently performing. We are leading the way in a sense in F District as we had a mixture of police and personnel taking calls prior to the Chief Constable's announcement of taking on more civilian staff to let more police officers out on the street.
“F District has a large area to cover. All the calls from every member of the public come into the call centre in Omagh. Some years ago, most towns had a police station where members of the public could contact that station.
“Call handling was then sub-divided into four districts - Omagh, Cookstown, Enniskillen and Dungannon. It was then changed to two centres - Enniskillen and Dungannon, and we are now down to just one, in Omagh, with a mixture of civilian and police personnel from across the districts."
Constable David Herron told the meeting that the call handling system was introduced to the PSNI last year with a number of objectives, including managing the demands of public expectation, making the most effective use of available resources and providing a common method of data collection. He said the system is guided by the National Call Handling Standards.
Explaining how the system worked, Const Herron said: "Call handlers receive calls, they take information, and determine the most appropriate response."
He told the meeting that calls were divided into two kinds - emergency or non-emergency.
Emergency
An emergency contact encompasses circumstances where an incident is reported to police which is taking place and in which there is, or is likely to be danger to life; the use, or immediate threat of use of violence; serious injury to a person and; serious damage to property.
The constable added that non-emergency calls were further sub-didvided into three levels of response: priority; scheduled, or resolution without deployment (ie. the caller's needs have been met through information or advice provided during the telephone conversation).
Constable Herron said in the case of a 'priority response' the call handler has ascertained there is a degree of importance or urgency associated with the initial police action, but that an emergency response is not required.
Such circumstances falling under this category include a genuine concern for somebody's safety, a witness or other evidence is likely to be lost, a traffic collision involving injuries or a serious obstruction, a person involved is suffering extreme distress or is otherwise deemed to be extremely vulnerable, and hate crime.
The police officer said that in order to ensure that community needs were being met, regular checks were made on the data recorded. He added that a process of 'cold calling' was now also in place to ensure that the 'right questions are being asked by the call handler'.
Inspector Nickson told the meeting that call handlers aimed to answer calls within 30 seconds.
He said that this target could vary at particular times, particularly the weekend. According to the officer, in December, 94.8 per cent of the calls received in Omagh were answered within 30 seconds. In the same period, C District had an answering rate of 98 per cent.
“The other districts were well below that," Insp Nickson said.
He added that from April 1 last year until Thursday past, F district had received 45,385 calls, 11,046 which required police action.

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