Lincolnshire Police urge anyone who accidently calls 999 to stay on the line
They experienced a record 13,000 emergency calls in June
Lincolnshire Police are asking anyone who accidentally calls 999 to stay on the line, after experiencing their busiest ever month in June.
The force received 13,713 calls to 999 - more than double the usual average.
The previous recorded was 12,972 in August 2022.
A force spokesperson explained: “Nationally, Emergency (999) demand has been increasing around 10% year on year for the last ten years so this is not an issue unique to Lincolnshire Police.”
They are asking that anyone who accidentally calls should stay on the line, rather than hang up.
“We have to complete a number of resource-intensive tasks to reassure ourselves that our attendance is not needed – if you stay on the line we can complete these much quicker and get to those that really need us.”
Summer is also particularly busy the force said, with increasing numbers of calls involving domestic abuse, violence and missing people.
An issue with Android phones has also been reported as increasing accidental calls.
They added: “The main driver of this particularly high demand has been linked to the Android issues that have been well documented causing an exceptionally high number of abandoned / silent 999 calls.
“In June alone we were averaging around 110 abandoned / silent 999 calls per day, which is up from around an average of 50 per day earlier in the year.”
Of the total calls received in June, approximately 8,000 were classified as urgent or priority incidents.
The remaining calls were a mixture of routine and non-attendance graded jobs. This includes multiple reports for the same incident, additional information regarding media appeals, or calls for non-policing matters.
An Android patch released in early July is expected to have addressed this issue.