West Yorkshire Police's busy team of call handlers deal with 1,300 emergency calls every day.
The contact centre, next to a busy junction in south Bradford, could be mistaken for any other bustling call centre business, apart from tell-tale screens on the walls sharing the all-important statistics of how many calls are waiting and the average time it is taking to answer them.
The force says these account for 15-20% of all 999 or 101 calls and tend to arrive during the busiest times of the shift.Watch: A woman sitting near a crying baby on a bus is among recent 999 calls to West Yorkshire Police The centres employ about 215 staff, working a variety of shifts to provide around-the-clock assistance.
Nick Raleigh, a 43-year-old contact officer who was a new recruit three months ago, says: "I've had some awful calls to deal with, rapes and things like that - stuff you know you're going to be getting but until you get that call you don't know how you're going to react to. Mr Donohoe, who is retiring in December and started his police career in 1992 as a call handler, says he's "very proud" of the force's record of answering every 999 call swiftly, but admits it can often lead to shortages elsewhere."We need to educate the public to remove that 20% of non-police calls so our 101 service becomes as good as our 999 service.
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