Lincolnshire Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones working with councils and health teams to improve officer response times after 101 criticism

Police officer response times could be improved by a new plan which aims to divert health related incidents away from the force – following complaints about the 101 service.

Lincolnshire Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones says he is working with health and council teams on the Right Care, Right Person project which will see that people receive help from the appropriate service.

This comes the non-emergency 101 reporting service was branded ‘not fit for purpose’ by South Holland district councillors – after one member was facing a 49 minute wait to phone in an incident.

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The Right Care, Right Person Plan was adopted by the Metropolitan Police in October, which is no longer attending mental health calls as its officers spent 10,000 hours working on sectioning patients in March this year.

Mr Jones said: “Lincolnshire Police and partners in local authorities and the health service are working together to implement the national Right Care, Right Person Plan which will see incidents relating to health rather than policing matters directed to more appropriate sources of support, freeing up police officer time to spend more time in the community.

“This is a huge development in the way partners work together to serve our communities and will take some time to implement but progress is positive.”

The phone and online reporting systems came under fire at a recent SHDC performance monitoring panel meeting when members said people were no longer ‘bothering’ to use the 101 system.

Earlier this year, the cash-strapped force – one of the most underfunded in the country - announced that it was slashing its total of 90 PCSOs to 50. It also raided its reserves to meet a £10million budget black hole.

Lincolnshire Police has previously stated that demand on its emergency lines has almost doubled in the last 10 years and it has taken on additional call handlers.

Mr Jones said: “It is vitally important that residents have confidence that they can contact the police in a timely and effective way and that is why I have devoted considerable effort and money into supporting the force on this issue.

“I inherited an understaffed, out of date control room that was struggling to function even at the call levels of seven years ago. Since then calls for service have ballooned - yet it still remains the case that only one in four is regarding crime. Some anecdotal issues may relate to contact with the force predating the significate investment and focus that has been delivered recently.

“That said, even with the millions invested in vital infrastructure - such the latest telephony systems and world leading command and control to speed up answering, processing and officer deployment - there is still more to do. That is why I freed up funding for an additional 15 call handling professionals and the latest training to ensure the service our communities receive continues to improve.

“With the nature of calls becoming ever more complex we are also seeing calls take significantly longer on average to complete. It is right that callers are dealt with correctly and thoroughly but this does affect waiting times too.

“With Lincolnshire Police consistently performing as one of the best in the country for answering 999 calls, our communities can have confidence that when they need the police for a crime in action or an emergency the service is top notch. The focus now is on developing the online reporting system for non emergency matters and driving up standards through the national 101 service.

“I am confident positive strides are being made and not only publish data on the force performance regarding call handling but also challenge the Chief Constable publicly through the Public Assurance Meetings.”

What we found

In the interests of fairness we did try the non-emergency 101 number to see what the wait times were.

After the pre-amble pointing people towards the right number for difference services – including dog fouling, strangely – we were able to get straight through to an operator.

The total call time was two minutes.

What do you think? Is the 101 number fit for purpose? Post your views in the comments below...