Ex 999/101 police dispatcher AMA

[Dlah]

Ask away :)

@AdoraBell I think it naturally has an impact, certain jobs stay with you more than others, sometimes from a call taker perspective - I remember taking a call of a road traffic accident and a member of the public was giving me details of numerous vehicles involved and all I could hear was a young child in background "is my daddy going to die, please don't let him die" and knowing their dad was in quite a bad way. Also any job in general when you get the message of life extinct passed back, it's sad and hard

@Fatted
Whilst there are a lot of positives, sadly there was so much red tape, you very much felt like a number at times rather than a person. It was getting less and less in terms of officers and I personally didn't want to be the dispatcher who sent someone in single crewed who didn't come out again. Sadly it was just how things were getting. A 'busy' queue when I started was 10-15 jobs being dealt with, some 5-6 years later you were constantly battling 25-35 jobs on the queue with only a handful of units to split between them, it then became a juggling act to prioritise people and I just stopped feeling comfortable picking Peter over Paul when both were just as in need

Yes, sounds very similar.

I'll never forget one night there was 3 grade 1s (did you use grades?) in the same town at the same time and only one patrol to send.

With me, it was the stress was getting worse, call waiting times were getting worse and most of my shift was spent reassuring people who had already phoned that yes someone was still going to come and see them. Eventually.

I'm still in the job, but with a different department now. But it is a very different place to work compared with when I joined almost 20 years ago now.

@Fatted I feel like I could probably guess the force you were with 🤣 yes - grade 1 also, and breaking point was similar, a Friday night, 5 grade ones came in within 2 minutes of each other and rarely they were all genuine grade 1's and I could only cover 2, had loads of officers on constants etc, called up the sergeant, told me to go to the overall inspector, called him up and was basically told the cupboards empty.

Couldn't do it anymore

@Diah

Well it's 07 I'm with if you know your force codes .

@Fatted oh god now you're testing me, I've left and had a baby since then, my brain cells have depleted!! 🤣🤣

When you're on a call, can you see previous calls that caller has made? And if so, is that due to the number they're calling for or because they've given their name?

Like if I call from work (either from my mobile or work landline), can the call handler see the other calls I've made (that might be personal?)

@ASauvignonADay yes, if there's any previous history we can search the number and the name and see if anything's linked

Can I ask what the most ridiculous reasons people have had for ringing.

We had an ambulance a few weeks ago and they’d had a call out to a teenager whose face had gone a bit red from some new spot cream

@Ihatesundays there was a time so clever people spread that if your battery was low and you rang 999 it would boost your battery . . Safe to say - not true!

Ermm . . A stolen sausage roll! Stolen by his partner!

Safe to say it sometimes makes you feel more normal lol

Sausage roll though.....

@Fatted hello fellow 07

What is the one call that you always remember/still think about?

How much do 999 call handlers get paid? Watching them on 'Ambulance', not enough. It seems a very stressful job, but there also seems a lot of support from colleagues.

@Bowbridge one particular job was a young girl who sadly died at the roadside having been crashed into by a drunk driver just before Christmas, only 18 herself. No age

Call handlers just take the phone calls, communications officers do phones and dispatch. Tbf they are not a bad wage. I used to get an low full time wage for part time hours