999 Calls have increased by 9% say Thames Valley Police
While 101 calls are down 4%, there has been a significant rise in the number of 999 calls received by Thames Valley Police
Last year Thames Valley Police received nearly one million calls to there 999 and 101 lines.
Of these calls 160,127 incidents were attended which is a 7% decrease compared to the previous year.
In recent years Thames Valley Police have also introduced an online webform as a way of reporting incidents.
The web form has seen a 14% increase in use when compared to last years force statistics, with 108,114 incidents reported between 1st April 2023 and 31st March 2024.
Recently we visited Abingdon police station, which houses the 999 and 101 call handlers team.
Eddie Elias is a call handler who started during the Covid-19 pandemic spoke about what it takes to be a good call handler: "You have to be able to help people, you know people that need help, you can point people in the right direction and you're able to give people good advice.
"You become resilient after a while, as you get older you realise you've covered most walks of life and had those personal experiences with people around you.
"Like any job it can be stressful when you've got someone stood on a bridge saying they're going to jump and you've got to multi task, by keeping them calm and also alerting the right emergency services.
"A lot of people think any problem means they need to call the Police, but obviously that's not the case.
"I had an old lady the other day, screaming at me down the phone in the middle of the night absolutely petrified.
"It turned out a cat had got into her house and was laying on her bed but that's all it was, so I managed to get some officers to go down there and sort it out and she was really happy."