Fault with 999 calls. Police advice to call 101 in an emergency

[ThreeB]

I know it's not an AIBU but important message from the police.

It's definitely on their Twitter account but it's not a very helpful message. Is the issue with the 999 number itself and therefore affects all the emergency services, or just the 999 service transferring calls to the police?

Who's going to look on twitter in an emergency

Only Sky and The Sun reporting it at the moment, on the basis of the tweet. Perhaps BBC is sensibly verifying it first.

It seems to be across the range of forces nationally for the police on the 999 number, but it doesn't say that it's the same for fire and ambulance - those services don't tweet as much.

Oh - fire and ambulance too. Do you think that it has been hacked? This sounds like the plot of an episode of Spooks!

It appears to be a national issue across all 999 services. Individual forces are gradually sending out alternative numbers but they're all sending them out via SM (not hugely helpful for many users).

This actually happens way more often than you think!

DH on shift at the moment in the ambulance service. The problem is across the board.

How do you suggest they do it? SM is the most effective way to get the message out

Exactly! The public would have heart failure if they knew just how often 😂

You'd think there would be a nationwide protocol for this scenario, eg official message to all media outlets giving clear details. Not tweets from individual services...

The government should use the mobile phone alert system which they tested a few months ago to inform people of this.

Surely this is one of those times the new emergency alert phone thing should be used

Jinx @Violetparis! 😂

I think its because of android phones calling 999 by mistake.

@LittleMissNaice 😃

What? That's awful

It's been in the news for the past week or so, an upgrade has changed something that auto dials emergency services

Didn't they try to test a system that would have sent this to all our mobiles?

Thanks for heads up I've been putting off the upgrade so I'll leave it!

That was exactly my first thought!

But I suppose that if I needed the police urgently, having read that, I would now dial 101 instead of 999.

I hope they let everyone know when it's sorted.

What do you mean try? @sashh

People who can't get through on 999 and want to see if there's a reported reason why?

Also, people are going to see it in advance of emergencies.

Isn't this the type of situation the emergency alert system was set up for?

Not everyone's glued to SM all the time, especially older people.

They should have a newsflash on tv and radio as well.