Unfortunatly I have had reason to ring 999 twice in the past week
first time as my car was stolen and it was being followed by my daughter, small crime I suppose, so not that important.
Last night I had cause to ring 999 again this time for more serious reasons, eg vehicle accident bike v car, bike rider badly hurt, Rang 999 I was astonished to be placed in a queue both times. Ifelt quite sorry for the lady who answers the call to ask which service, all she could do was appologise for the delay.
Is this normal in Sheffield ?:confused:

Did you ring from a landline or mobile phone?

Yes, Sass was badly hurt at the pub a week or so ago, I rang 999 and was put in a queue. The operator came back to me a few minutes later to apologise for the delay and I had to carry on waiting.

Other customers from the pub joined in the queue to see who could get through first. Someone beat me to it who had phoned AFTER me!

Not good enough at all. We were phoning from landlines and mobiles!

Originally posted by jan2002
I had cause to ring 999 again this time for more serious reasons, eg vehicle accident bike v car, bike rider badly hurt

Oh no, not another bike accident!!!!!! :confused: :( :o

was the bike accident on buchanan rd involving a taxi as i was at that 1 he had just left custom bike show at pheasant

This kind of stuff gives me nightmares - seriously. What if someone was smashing down your front door and you had just a few seconds to alert the police? A queue isn't going to help you much. I will e-mail the Police Press Office to see if we can get a response to this, perhaps you (Jan2002 and CR) could reply with the exact (or close as possible) times and dates. Cheers.

When were you put in a queue? Was it when you first dialed 999, or was it after the operator had answered and you'd asked for police/ambulance and were waiting to be connected to that service?

Sunday 29th August at 9pm.

Phone rang for ages before being answered, when asked which service I asked for police AND ambulance (Sass was unconscious and bleeding). I was on hold for about five mins, then the operator returned to say sorry for the delay and she'd try a different number. Others around me also had their phones to their ears. I remained on hold until someone announced they had got through.

Incidentally the police never came that were called. The police who attended had been driving past and were flagged down by a customer. The ambulance took around 20 mins to arrive AFTER the police arrived and only because we kept nagging the police to chase it up.

Very unsatisfied (had thought about mentioning this appalling response time on here, but forgot)

Yes Roger that was the one, buchanan road last night (sunday) not sure what time it was about 8.30

my car one was sun 29 aug car was seen at city road filling station by my daughter at around 8.45pm

both calls on hold after answered by operator but she couldn`t put us thro anywhere so put on hold what a ridiculos situation for emergency services

It will be interesting to read any response you get when you ask whats going wrong

I can't believe this has really happened that is awful! As has already been said what happens if you litteraly have seconds to make the call. I know the response will be that it's all the prank calls that cause the delays but (and this is a seperate issue) prank calls do exist so they need enough people to deal with them as well.

Agreed. A queue for 999 services is unacceptable. Arrival times for the ambulance and police is the issue that needs to be tackled after this.

I had to call 999 quite often in my previous job & at times still do now, I have been put on hold several times & once it was ringing continuous & when the operator finally answered & I went to speak it went dead as if I had been hung up on, quite frustrating & frightning as I was always phoning for people who & are not able to phone themselves, so their life is in your hands so to speak

Originally posted by Classic Rock
Yes, Sass was badly hurt at the pub a week or so ago, I rang 999 and was put in a queue. The operator came back to me a few minutes later to apologise for the delay and I had to carry on waiting.

Other customers from the pub joined in the queue to see who could get through first. Someone beat me to it who had phoned AFTER me!

Not good enough at all. We were phoning from landlines and mobiles!

Er, am I alone in thinking that if a pub full of people all dial 999 at the same time, and this pattern is repeated elsewhere, that this in itself might be the problem?

"Your emergency is important to us. Please continue to hold..."

The pub at which my girlfriend works had to call 999 at about 6pm on friday 3/9/2004 and just got an engaged tone. Can anyone get through??!!

This seems pretty serious.. are Sheffield Star on the case?

If it continues then questions should be asked in the Commons.

Conspiracy theory - is this a performance targets thing? If all the cops and ambulances are busy then they can't get to you quickly. If the timer starts after the operator has taken your call then they can make response times seem faster by delaying answering your call.

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
Er, am I alone in thinking that if a pub full of people all dial 999 at the same time, and this pattern is repeated elsewhere, that this in itself might be the problem?

Interesting point that, I wonder if part of the problem is down to lots of people trying to report the same incident. With the popularity of mobiles this is now far more likely than ever before.

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
Er, am I alone in thinking that if a pub full of people all dial 999 at the same time, and this pattern is repeated elsewhere, that this in itself might be the problem?

Only if more than one reaches an operator. If the rest hang up when one gets an answer then they were simply increasing the size of the queue not increasing anyone's workload.

Originally posted by march
Interesting point that, I wonder if part of the problem is down to lots of people trying to report the same incident. With the popularity of mobiles this is now far more likely than ever before.

Especially as you can still dial 999 (or 112) on Nokia phones when the keypad is locked.

I think all 999 calls go to a call centre, i'm not sure if it's a local, regional or national thing. Perhaps it's India?

Originally posted by Classic Rock
Yes, Sass was badly hurt at the pub a week or so ago, I rang 999 and was put in a queue. The operator came back to me a few minutes later to apologise for the delay and I had to carry on waiting.

Other customers from the pub joined in the queue to see who could get through first. Someone beat me to it who had phoned AFTER me!

Not good enough at all. We were phoning from landlines and mobiles!
Hope all is ok, I go in the CRB fairly often and always thought it had a real chilled out edge, the area it is situated is sadly being over run with scum tho.....

I think that part of the answer is that there are so many 999 calls now about the same incident. In the past if there was a crash on the motorway there'd be a few calls. Now everyone that passes gets on their mobile and phones 999. Because there are so many calls they have to be queued and because every call has to be answered in person it takes longer to get through them all. I suppose the only answer is to have lots more people at the 999 desks, the police, fire and ambulance desks. I bet the actual number of incidents has gone up a bit but the number of phone calls has gone up loads.

well that's my 2 penn'orth

Yes, I've been put on hold when a group of five youths were breaking into my house and on another occasion when a prostitute and client were having sex against my front door (in broad daylight).

Fortunately, I've moved house since then and live in peace.

Originally posted by garrence
"Your emergency is important to us. Please continue to hold..."

The pub at which my girlfriend works had to call 999 at about 6pm on friday 3/9/2004 and just got an engaged tone. Can anyone get through??!!

This seems pretty serious.. are Sheffield Star on the case?

If it continues then questions should be asked in the Commons.

Conspiracy theory - is this a performance targets thing? If all the cops and ambulances are busy then they can't get to you quickly. If the timer starts after the operator has taken your call then they can make response times seem faster by delaying answering your call.

Time taken to answer the call is also measured from the point the caller joins the queue, so performance targets would still be affected.

The communications team in SY have recently moved to new premises after months of problems (caused by the external provider) with the new systems. Things should improve in the very near future.

Even so, the situation is unacceptable.

I dunno if you saw any of this in the press but almost a year ago I was staying with my best friend the night she got out of hospital after being in for a week after suffering an asthma attack, she had another one that night, we called the 999 three times after about 45 mins the ambulance arrived, sadly she was already dead, we later found out at the inquest that the the first time we called an ambulance was allocated to her... but wasnt due on call for another 20 mins...

Something really needs to be done about the state of the emergency services.

Susie
xx

The emergancy services suck in Sheffield and surrounding areas... my gran lives in Rotherham...

it was like just after midnight and we get a call from her scared to hell cus some kids had started smashing up her plant pots and banging on her windows and door... scared the hell out of her, and this was not long after my grandad had died, so she was in a real fragile state of mind...

the cops said they'd send someone out whenever they had a car free in the area but it wasnt an emergancy... my mum rang up the police after waiting in a queue for a while, had a go at them and they agreed to send someone out...

meanwhile my dad drove me over to her house, hackenthorpe to kimberworth, not very long drive at gone midnight ;) so i stopped over at hers and stayed up expecting the cops to turn up while she was in bed... y'know what? they never showed up!

so what would have happened if these kids hadn't bogged off after getting bored and had broke in and mugged or beat up my gran eh?

and yet, they can spend time making pointless arrests in the town centre... I got arrested a few years back in the town centre by plain clothes cops for wearing a t-shirt with a swear word on the back...

I got grabbed, a badge flashed at me, at thrown in the back of a normal car... scared the crap out of me... I now have a "final warning" or something because I was like 16 and didnt want a solicitor as I didnt think i'd done anything wrong... i spent like 3hrs in a cell till my dad came down and got me to agree to a caution...

so really we can afford to pay for plain clothes cops to arrest people wearing t-shirts with naughty words on, but we cant pay for old people to be protected?

bah, it peeves me off at times how much the government and cops and emergancy services suck!

six guys with bullet proof vest smuggle a gun into a club....who ya gonna call?

the ghostbusters? :D
the nearest underwear store? lol

i'd run and then call the cops, then wait till the guys have mowed down half the club and the cops turn up with 1 car and go "whats up here then?"

I know someone who works at the police call centre. Roughly 70% of the calls are from divs who call cos they have an ingroing toenail etc.

If these calls werent made the response times would be greatly improved.

Originally posted by rooby_roo
I know someone who works at the police call centre. Roughly 70% of the calls are from divs who call cos they have an ingroing toenail etc.

If these calls werent made the response times would be greatly improved.

Perhaps all calls should be screened immediately and then placed in a queue according to some kind of priority? So the less pressing calls could be put to the back burner and the real emergencies would be answered and dealt with immediately.

Apparently the police take an average of 7,500 999 calls a week. So if 70% of them are from idiots who don't really want 999 then there's over 5,000 nuisance / unwanted calls. Then the real emergencies have to wait. So perhaps it's not right to only blame the emergency services but the ****heads who abuse the system.

Originally posted by pitsmoorlad
So perhaps it's not right to only blame the emergency services but the ****heads who abuse the system.

Here here!!

I totally agree.

Not sure if things will change but the folks who take the 2202020 calls now also take 999 calls as well so hopefully we might see an improvement in the 999 side of things.

This article (http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3364645) gives details of problems which South Yorkshire Amublance Service are having in responding to incidents quickly.

South Yorkshire's Coroner, Chris Dorries, has critisised the ambulance service for not responding to incidents quickly enough. The ambulance service have invested £2million in providing extra front-line staff.

I don`t recall the 999 problem being around a few years ago
so could part of the problem be targets, perhaps too many resorces are being used trying to meet them

Police response:

There will always be waiting times when the demand is overwhelming. Most times of the day we answer almost 100% of calls with 15 seconds but there are delays when specific events such as motorway accidents give rise to a sudden influx of mobile calls.

Even at times of delay every 999 call will get answered but callers will have to be patient when operators are inundated.

One of the biggest problems we face is that less than one in four calls is a genuine emergency. Most of them are from mobile phones callers who make them because they are free. People can assist greatly by ringing 999 only in an emergency, for example if someone is in danger or if an offender is nearby. They should not ring 999 to report matters that do not require an urgent police response as this stops genuine emergencies from getting through quickly.

Fairly predictable - but at least they've issued a statement and have therefore been informed of the feelings of CR, Jan2002 and the forum in general.

Not bad for a site the Telegraph doesn't consider 'useful' (still waiting for apology if you're reading :P )

Heh heh, nice one Geoff.

Nicely Geoff. This does re-emphasise the need to only call once for each incident.

On the same subject, from the Star (http://www.sheffieldtoday.net/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=58&ArticleID=853302):

Police ignored our plea for help
MUM Janiene Rymer has slammed police after 999 operators kept her on hold when she phoned to report a man who tried to snatch her 10-year-old son.

Janiene, aged 30, said she waited in a queue for more than two minutes while frantically trying to alert officers that a possible pervert was on the loose. She eventually got through and was told to stay indoors but no officer ever called.

And two days later police said they would not be visiting because they were too busy.

Thanks Geoff
Typical response but at least we got one
Still not good enough though if you are in immediate danger will you have time to wait ?

is all this info the reason why sheffield is one of the safiest places to live with all the missed phone calls. or is it because with all the gun and knife crimes they dont have enough police to cover other incidents

But surely one of the group should still get through ok?

this evenong i had to make a call after a car just missed a group of children having waited on 999 i eventually got through gave all the details of vehicle and was told it had already been reported
they would advise officers but they were very busy and in order for them to take action i would have to attend a police station and make a statement (fair enough) but as we constantly have similar problems where are the police too busy catching easy target speeders on main rds i suppose when a child is killed they,ll take notice and make a big hoo haa about rd safety its a shame its more about money at the moment

Quote:
Originally posted by Phanerothyme
Er, am I alone in thinking that if a pub full of people all dial 999 at the same time, and this pattern is repeated elsewhere, that this in itself might be the problem?


Interesting point that, I wonder if part of the problem is down to lots of people trying to report the same incident. With the popularity of mobiles this is now far more likely than ever before.

- Not really an interesting point, if everyone was reporting the same incident then it shouldn't affect the queue surely as once 1 call was answered the rest would hang up, does this not seem common sense?

Originally posted by fliznora
Quote:

- Not really an interesting point, if everyone was reporting the same incident then it shouldn't affect the queue surely as once 1 call was answered the rest would hang up, does this not seem common sense?

follow it through and you'll see its not so much common sense as wishful thinking. Do all the other callers know the state of all the other callers calls? If its a queue then all the first caller will be connected first - all the others are just holding up other emergency calls behind them in the queue.

Originally posted by fliznora
Quote:
Originally posted by Phanerothyme
Er, am I alone in thinking that if a pub full of people all dial 999 at the same time, and this pattern is repeated elsewhere, that this in itself might be the problem?


Interesting point that, I wonder if part of the problem is down to lots of people trying to report the same incident. With the popularity of mobiles this is now far more likely than ever before.

- Not really an interesting point, if everyone was reporting the same incident then it shouldn't affect the queue surely as once 1 call was answered the rest would hang up, does this not seem common sense?

Well it's common sense if all the people calling are standing together, but if they are together why would they all need to phone. If they're not together they won't know that it's been answered. It's nice that people care enough to phone 999 and not just turn away, but I guess it can also block up the sytem.

Originally posted by roger
this evenong i had to make a call after a car just missed a group of children having waited on 999 i eventually got through gave all the details of vehicle and was told it had already been reported
they would advise officers but they were very busy and in order for them to take action i would have to attend a police station and make a statement (fair enough) but as we constantly have similar problems where are the police too busy catching easy target speeders on main rds i suppose when a child is killed they,ll take notice and make a big hoo haa about rd safety its a shame its more about money at the moment

Sorry to use this post as an example, but it's a good example of misuse of the 999 facility. The above was not an emergency situation. Yes, it's serious, but if the car just missed then I assume there was no injury and nothing that demanded the urgent attention of the emergency services. The police would not consider it an emergency to go out and catch the driver immediately- if they did, all they would ever do is chase dangerous drivers.

As for the comment about it being "more about money", do you really think the police prioritise money over the life of a child? Yes, speed cameras make money, but it's a highly regulated area that has no bearing on whether a child's life is at risk because of improper prioritisation. You say the police are catching easy targets- you think it'd be better if they sat around in country roads catching a couple of speeders an hour? The easiest targets are in the areas with the highest concentration of speeding vehicles. Simple logic.

The Star (http://www.sheffieldtoday.net/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=58&ArticleID=857925) are reporting that, in order to help ease congestion on the 999 service, South Yorkshire Police now have an agreement with West Yorkshire Police where each force will answer "overflow" calls from the other force during times of high demand.

in reply to herbaliser the reason it was made as a 999 was not because he had just missed the group once but was racing up and down the road and surrounding roads at speeds of upto 70mph in 30mph zones if he had just missed them then left i wouldn,t have made said call but has he was continuing in his actions then someone could have been killed iv,e heard from other locals that eventually he wheelsun and doughnutted in front of a police car on purpose then took 3 police on a chase through the local area

it took the police three hours, this afternoon to resond to a call I made.

A drunken bloke indecently exposed himself in front of me and my grandchildren, at lunchtime.

I called 999, because I felt that, in front of a 4.5 yr old, and a 3 yr old it was out of order, let alone in front of me, an adult woman.

I made the all to report this, and gave them a description of the bloke, where he was, and what he was wearing.

Three (that's T H R E E!... Three!!) hours later, in the middle of this afternoon, someone from SYP called me, and said "is he still there, do you know?"

I thought... You what????

As I said to the police staff member, "I'm hardly likely to be still there after 3 hours, if something like this has happened, am I?"

I don't know what I'm angriest about...

a)I cant believe that someone could be so drunk and incapable, at that time of day, as to expose themself, especially when there's kiddies around, or b) that the police could take three hours to even phone me back about it!

I mean, three hours! the suspect could be as far away as London in that time! (ok, he wouldn't, as he was as drunk as a skunk, but, well!!)

I am just reallly, really angry.

PT