#HelpUsHelpYou - Learn about the different ways to contact us in a non-emergency
#HelpUsHelpYou highlights the different services we have to help you contact the police in a non-emergency, freeing up our 999-emergency line for those in genuine need.
On average, we receive 1,310 calls a day, with almost half of these (750 daily average) being non-emergency calls. In our Policing Pledge, we pledged to answer emergency calls by telephone and give a non-emergency service, 24/7, all year round. We also pledged to prioritise emergencies and direct you to the appropriate agency, if we can’t help you.
What is a 999-emergency?
A 999-emergency is where it is reported that there is an incident on-going and there is, or is likely to be, a risk of:
- Danger to life
- Use, or immediate threat of use, of violence
- Serious injury to a person and/or
- Serious damage to property
Where the contact relates to an allegation of criminal conduct, it will be dealt with as an emergency if:
- A crime is, or is likely to be serious,
- A crime is in progress
- An offender has just been disturbed at the scene
- An offender has been detained and poses, or is likely to pose, a risk to themselves or other people
Where the contact relates to a traffic collision, it will be dealt with as an emergency if:
- It involves or is likely to involve serious personal injury
- There is a serious obstruction, or a strategic road is blocked or there is a dangerous or excessive build-up of traffic
Here is a video of one of our contact handlers explaining what a 999 emergency is:
What if I have a hearing or speech impairment?
If you have a hearing or speech impairment, you can register with the emergencySMS service, which will allow you to use our textphone service 18000 or text us on 999.
If you're a British Sign Language (BSL) user, you can call 999 BSL to use a remote BSL interpreter.
We've also worked with our local Deaf community to produce a short video in BSL, giving you more information about the different contact methods available.
More ways of reporting
We have several ways of reporting non-emergency crime.
We're encouraging people to go online to make non-emergency reports. This will help us to provide a better, more efficient service for our communities, and assist those asking for our help quickly. This also means that you can contact us at a time that is convenient for you.
If it is not an emergency and the crime you want to speak to us about is not happening right now, please do not call 999.
Here are some of the things you can do online through our online reporting service.
- Report a crime
- Report antisocial behaviour
- Provide or ask for an update
- Lost or stolen vehicles
- Road traffic incident
- Tell us about a procession or event you are planning
Learn more about how we deal with online reports in the video below.
Advice and Information
If the incident is not an emergency, and you are unsure on who you should contact, you can visit our pages dedicated to different crime types. Our advice and information pages will tell you which authority can help you, as well as share crime prevention advice and further information.