Police in Stamford among quickest to answer 999 calls in UK
It's after new data showed only one force in the UK is meeting answer time targets.
New data has shown that the Police force in Stamford is one of the best in the country in answering 999 calls.
Statistics released by the Home Office show Lincolnshire Police picks up in six seconds - the third fastest across the UK.
Meeting a target to answer 90% of 999 calls in less than 10 seconds is a "significant challenge for policing" at a time of squeezed budgets, a police chief has said as new data revealed only one force in the UK is attaining the goal.
Avon and Somerset Police was the only force to meet the standard, according to national statistics released for the first time by the Home Office.
Forty-three forces failed to meet it over the six months from November 2021 to April 2022.
The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) lead for contact management, Assistant Chief Constable Alan Todd, said the figures demonstrated the high level of demand on call handlers.
He told the PA news agency in Belfast that police services "deal with 12 million 999 calls a year from the public and that demand is going up 5% every year, year-on-year, so it is a difficult space in terms of demand for police service.
"The complexity of those calls and the time taken to handle those calls is going up year-on-year at a time when police budgets are at best static and in some cases falling in terms of the support we're able to provide for contact management centres.
"So that is a challenge, but it is a challenge that, alongside this data release today and working with public accountability bodies across the UK, we aim to further improve upon the good work we've done to date".
Overall, 71% of 999 calls were answered within 10 seconds, the data showed.
Humberside Police recorded the worst number, with only 2% of calls answered in less than 10 seconds. South Yorkshire Police answered 17%, Durham Police 41%, North Yorkshire 44% and Gloucestershire 49%.
Assistant Chief Constable Alan Todd says he also blamed the waits on "too many calls to police services right across the UK that are either prank calls or hoax calls or just inappropriate use of the 999 system".
Home Secretary Priti Patel said "the public deserve to know that their local police force will be at the end of the phone, ready to leap into action at seconds' notice to protect them from harm".
"Fundamentally, publishing this data is about driving up standards in our incredible emergency services even further, so that the public can have every confidence in the police's ability to save lives and keep our streets safe," she added.
"We can now see where forces are excelling and where vital improvements need to be made and I thank the police for their commitment to ensuring we maintain the best emergency services in the world."
It comes after the BBC reported that freedom of information requests obtained from 22 police forces in England and Wales suggested officers are now 28% slower to attend Grade 1 emergencies.
You can read the full Home Office report here.