SuffolkNews goes behind the scenes of police control room in Martlesham near Ipswich

For a 999 police call operator, no two days are the same.

In the hustle and bustle of the Suffolk Police control room, based in Martlesham Heath near Ipswich, call takers are assisting the public and offering assurances.

Pam, known as Oscar 3 in the control room, has been in the job for 22 years. She is currently working as acting supervisor of the call handlers while her colleague is on leave. Her job is to filter calls through to available operators, ensuring that there is enough people to take 999 calls, and assisting newer members of staff.

“Every day is different,” she said.

“That’s what I like about it. If you go on leave there’s not a big pile of work, you just start afresh. Whatever you’ve done that day, you can’t change what decisions you’ve made. You just go onto the next day.”

Around the control room, screens show CCTV of key towns such as Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich. Another screen shows how many call handlers are available, how many calls have been taken since midnight and how many minutes callers have been waiting.

From the beginning of April 2022 to the end of March 2023, the Contact and Control Room (CCR) received more than 360,000 calls. 128,957 of those were made through the emergency 999 line and 231,352 was through the 101 non-emergency number.

The number of calls made on the 101 saw an increase of 14% from the previous year. And only 25,000 reports were made online.

But behind the figures are people.

“You do become thick-skinned,” Pam added.

“Certain calls do affect my mental health. I’ve gone home crying in the car some days, like if there’s been a bad car accident and someone’s died – you relate it to your own family.

“One of the main incidents which has stayed with me is a jogger who died while out running while out on Boxing Day. She got hit by a car.

“All I kept thinking about was trying to find her family and I couldn’t leave here until I knew they’d found her family. That made me cry because she had new trainers on that she’d got for Christmas.”

Across the room, Jane, or Oscar 1, is in charge of dispatch for more serious incidents. She assesses what units should be sent particular incidents like firearms incidents or knife crime.

“It’s a very demanding and challenging role but it’s enjoyable,” she said.

Jane has been a police officer for over 20 years and has worked in the control room for four years.

Command and Control Room Chief Inspector Shawn Wakeling said: “The Suffolk public are our greatest advocates and also our greatest partners. We want to engage with them and give them information around the types of calls coming in.

“We’ve noticed from our own analysis that some of the 999 calls are not always appropriate. Sometimes people are calling and it’s not an emergency. There isn’t a high level of risk which then unfortunately takes up a call operator who otherwise could be dealing with risk situations.”

Non-emergency incidents can be reported through the Suffolk Police website for things like: anti-social behaviour, criminal damage, theft, road traffic collisions and uploading dash cam footage.

For general enquiries and advice, including following up on an existing reports, people can use the Live Chat function which can be accessed on the Suffolk Police website. It runs weekdays and can automatically translate up to 100 different languages.

Chief Inspector Wakeling also added that officers will still deal with mental health incidents, but only where there is high risk. This comes as the force announced it would be scaling back its response to mental health calls following an increase in the number of incidents the police were called out to between 2019 and 2021.

Suffolk Police will be organising a Tweetathon on June 21 where it will be sharing live real-time updates on hundreds of incidents for 10 hours from 11am.

Officers and staff will be tweeting basic details of live calls from the constabulary’s @SuffolkPolice account using #SPLive10.

Suffolk Police Crime and Commissioner Tim Passmore said: “I am so pleased to hear the control room is staging another Tweetathon.

“It is a really good opportunity for everyone to see exactly what the Constabulary deals with on a day-to-day basis, and doing this in real-time makes it a particularly authentic exercise.

“There has been a significant investment in the control room over the past two years – funded by the policing precept – and this has included improving online reporting and the introduction of live chat to alleviate the strain on the 101 service.

“The Tweetathon is a powerful illustration of the volume and variety of work that the constabulary undertakes during a normal working day and from the feedback received after the last one it is clear that it was very well received by the public.

“I expect this exercise will also highlight the number of calls that come through to the control room which should have been directed to partner agencies, which will be a useful lesson to us all to ensure we make the right call.