Those people will be unpleasantly surprised to learn of new data showing that only one police force in the UK is meeting a target to answer 90 per cent of such calls in under 10 seconds.

Forty-three forces failed to meet it over the six months from November 2021 to April 2022.

Overall, 71 per cent of 999 calls were answered within 10 seconds. However, Humberside Police recorded the worst number, with only two per cent of calls answered in under 10 seconds. South Yorkshire Police answered 17 per cent, Durham Police 41 per cent and North Yorkshire 44 per cent. In North Yorkshire, the average (mean) answering time was 29.3 seconds.

In a genuine emergency, waiting the best part of 30 seconds to get through for help must feel desperate.

These figures have been released for the first time by the Home Office, whose 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”.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for contact management, assistant chief constable Alan Todd, said a lag in connecting calls could contribute to waits but that “this isn’t for a member of the public to resolve”.

The challenge now is for forces to understand the reasons why they are taking so long to respond.

They must then articulate to the Home Office what they require in order to improve to a level where the public are satisfied that, if they are in grave danger, it can be handled.

Action needed over police 999 call answer times - The Yorkshire Post says