As someone has already said, unless you work within the police, you have absolutely no idea. So here's a reality check.
I took a £10k pay cut to join the police because it's something that I've always wanted to do, it's a calling, it's a vocation, I desperately wanted to help people and it's not about the money. I work in the lowest paid front line policing role throughout the entire country, yet I live in one of the most expensive areas of the country to live outside of London. Even a PC's starting salary can be as low as £19,971 and they are expected to run towards danger while the rest of you run away from it.
On a daily basis we take reports of things that 5 years ago may not have been considered a crime, but now because of Home Office recording statistics must be reported as such - things like someone being abusive on Facebook - and this takes up an immense amount of our time. There aren't enough of us to deal with this as well as to deal with the emergencies.
Emergencies always take priority. If someone calls the police and needs assistance immediately, police will get there.
If someone calls and says that they were assaulted two hours ago it will be treated differently, it does not require an immediate response, it is fine that police do not attend for a day or so, a statement can be taken at a later date because the parties are separate, police have established that the injured person is in a safe place and given further safeguarding advice. Arrangements are made to see them at a later date, and they are seen. Just because it's not immediate does not mean that the police aren't taking it seriously.
Each investigation is assigned to an officer who is entitled to days off, holiday, and to be ill because they are human just like the rest of you. If they're going to be off for a long time the case should be taken over by someone else temporarily, if there is someone else available. Some of these officers have huge amounts of cases - I've heard of officers having in excess of 100 active investigations due to the budget cuts and a lack of staffing. Can you imagine having such a massive workload of such serious issues?
When investigations are on going it can be difficult to identify a suspect. Was there CCTV? Were there any witnesses? If people refuse to come forward it's even harder - there's very low risk to people coming forward so it's frustrating when they refuse to. If there are no lines of enquiry then it's tough to push through with an investigation and people may need to understand that more - if there are no identifying factors how can the police identify who has committed a crime?
When you call 101 you may have to wait for quite a long time - each call can take a while to deal with this is because as much detail has to be taken, nothing can be missed, mistakes cannot be made, every risk has to be identified. Care has to be taken especially if it is someone reporting domestic abuse for the first time in 30 years, that shouldn't be expected to be banged out in a 7 minute call, the person making that call has taken a lot of courage, so they need to be treated with respect and care.
It's not a case of just "get more staff" budget cuts mean that isn't possible and lots of people have already been made redundant, there is no debate on that statement the police cannot afford to get more staff, end of. There are now approximately 27,000 police officers in London to protect and serve 10 million people, the lowest number there have been in years. The government have this idea of Direct Entry to plug the gap, just getting people in with no policing experience - it will end in disaster.
A lot of people also confuse "the police doing nothing" with the justice system doing nothing. A lot of the time the CPS refuse to charge because of a lack of evidence or it not being in the public interest - this isn't the fault of the police, this is the CPS deciding that it's not worthwhile, that there isn't enough public money to be spent taking it to court because it's not worth the public interest.
Sometimes the public do not help police or themselves/each other - they see someone lying in a doorway, they call police and refuse to check to see if the person is okay or even breathing so police and ambulance have to respond to someone who turns out to be drunk and has laid down for a nap. It's really common for people to refuse to check if someone is still breathing or conscious even in dire situations - it's like the caring has gone out of society.
Police staff and officers are human, the amount of abuse that we take is unfair. Every single day I am abused by people I have never met for absolutely no reason whatsoever, these are people that I am trying to help. The abuse is often personal and directed at me not at the police service, people threaten to kill and harm me while making entirely unreasonable demands of the police and they believe their behaviour is acceptable. It's not and it is detrimental to people's work and health, it also prevents the police from dealing with real emergencies.
The police do absolutely accept people's frustration at the current situation. Nationwide, the police are underfunded and understaffed, look anywhere online at any news outlet and you will see this reported. You'll see how patrols are going out single crewed which is extremely dangerous, you'll see a reduction in dog units, a reduction in helicopter availability, and overall reduction in staff and officers due to a lack of funding but a massive increase in a reporting of crime. These two things cannot work together and the situation must be reversed. Until it is, things will continue to get worse.