Like most people, Tina Parkin was used to frustrating calls when it came to services like banking or insurance, but she was gobsmacked to find the same treatment when she tried to call the police.
She wanted to contact a local branch to get help dealing with a domestic matter. Her call wasn’t an emergency, but her expectation was that she’d get through to an officer without too much trouble.
She first rang the Kaiapoi branch in Canterbury at 9am. She was connected to a message service, which put her through to another number, which rang... and rang... and rang... until after three and a half minutes, the line went dead.
She tried several times. She tried different police stations. But she got the same lack of response every time. Her lawyer also tried, to no avail.
It turned out she wasn’t the only one having problems. A neighbour who worked for a local petrol station said they often resorted to ringing 111, even if it wasn’t an emergency, as it was the only way to make contact.
Tina didn’t think this was right, but felt she had no choice, so she too rang 111. The police addressed her problem, and she says that to her surprise, they even said if she had the same frustrations again, that ringing 111 would help.
At this point, Tina came to us as she thought this problem deserved wider attention.
We took her concerns to the police and were surprised to find they openly admitted that calls weren’t being promptly answered in many areas.
They said that this was because more police officers were on the street, so there were fewer in the office to answer non-emergency calls.
However, they don’t want people to ring 111 unless it’s a genuine emergency. They said that the long waits for call answering would soon be over as they are actively recruiting staff for call centres.
They now have enough to service Auckland, the east and central regions of the North Island, with the aim of answering all non-emergency calls within 30 seconds.
Services to the rest of New Zealand should be up and running within the year.
SHARE ME