Hampshire Constabulary has said it has made "significant investments" to improve call response times as data shows it is the seventh slowest force in the UK. 

Data from Police.UK shows that on average it takes 16.59 seconds for a call to be transferred by BT to Hampshire Constabulary's call centres. 

Analysis of the data - which covers the period from March 2023 to February 2024 - by personal injury company, claims.co.uk ranked each force by its average call response time. 

The research found that Hampshire is the seventh-slowest out of the 44 forces in the UK. 

Bedfordshire Police was found to have the longest response times with 30.33 seconds whilst Lincolnshire Police was the quickest with an average of just seven seconds. 

Now though, Hampshire Constabulary has said it has made a "significant investment" into its call centres adding that quicker response times are "crucial". 

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A spokesperson said: "Being able to answer calls quickly, especially during an emergency, is crucial to delivering our core service to the public.

"We have worked extremely hard over the past year to improve our call handling times, with significant investment in recruiting more staff within our contact centres, opening a second centre in Portsmouth and the launch of the innovative Victim’s Portal, which allows victims the opportunity to directly message the officer in their case, instead of having to call the police for an update.

"All of these changes have had a positive impact on our call response times, with our average answer time for 999 calls at 9.7 seconds in February, against a national target of 10 seconds."

Without including the time it takes for BT to transfer the call, Hampshire's average call response time in February 2024 was down to 3 seconds.

A spokesperson from Claims.co.uk added: "The time it takes for the police to respond to a 999 call is crucial – the longer the caller waits, the higher the risk of harm and danger to the individual."

It comes as Hampshire's new Victim's Portal saw more than 4,527 users log in 18,462 times between its launch date on August 2, 2023 and March 14 this year.