Inside the control room: What happens when you dial 999 for Bedfordshire Police

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Our reporter, Olivia Preston, was invited to peek behind the curtain at Bedfordshire Police’s Kempston headquarters and experience life in the force control room.

While you might expect it to be full of shouting, waving arms, and call handlers dashing about, I found quite the opposite.

It was strangely calm, with people typing away on their computers, talking into their headsets and discussing the best course of action with colleagues around the room.

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The control room is large, filled with monitors, a tracker for how fast calls are answered and a live CCTV feed from locations across the county.

Headset of a radio agent in Bedfordshire Police's control room. Picture: Olivia PrestonHeadset of a radio agent in Bedfordshire Police's control room. Picture: Olivia Preston
Headset of a radio agent in Bedfordshire Police's control room. Picture: Olivia Preston

In November 2024, 93 per cent of 999 calls to Bedfordshire Police (8803) were answered in under 10 seconds, according to Police.com.

I always wondered how it all worked in those, hopefully rare, moments when you need to call 999. I sat down with some of those important people who answered calls at some of the most stressful moments imaginable.

When you dial 999, BT introduces the call and takes note of your number and location, so if your call is disconnected, there is a trace of where and who made the call. BT will then put you through to whichever service you need, for this example, it’s the police.

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The call handler will start by asking what the emergency is and where the person is.

If you don't know where you are, look around you and describe what you can see.

The call handler will also ask for the number you are calling from so they can call you back if you get cut off.

In those situations where you cannot speak on the phone during a 999 call, listen to the operator’s questions and respond by coughing or tapping your phone. Next, press 55 to let the operator know it’s a genuine emergency. If you don’t press 55, the call will be terminated.

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While on the phone, the call handler types up the information on the system and gets more details about the incident to the radio operators online.

Handlers continue to keep the person on the phone and feed information to the rest of the team.

Meanwhile, the radio dispatchers are scouring their maps and computer screens to work out where the resources and officers are in the area and find the best way to get the person in an emergency the fastest possible help. Via radios and headsets, these agents are talking to police officers on the ground to see who can get to the scene quickest.

From there, the call handler will either stay on the phone until help arrives, or will end the call - depending on the situation.

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While this might sound pretty straightforward as it is written down, in reality, those in the control room are trained to deal with the most serious and tough scenarios and treat every call with care, sincerity and sensitivity.

I spoke with one call handler who has been working for the force for nearly eight years, and explained that this job means being “the voice of reason”.

The handler, who wanted to remain anonymous, said: “If you panic, they panic, so it is best to stay calm.

“What can start as a very calm conversation with someone can become very hysterical very quickly, and it's easy to maybe assume what they're calling about, but really listen intensely to what they're saying, because you don't know what's going on on the other end of the phone.”

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This employee said that the skills needed for this job include: a sense of humour, people skills (to find common ground with the callers) and warmth. She said: “This job makes you look at the world differently.”

While most of us can determine what counts as an emergency, the control room gets calls from people which could be described as anything but an emergency - from a fox in a garden to shopping not being delivered on time.

The call handler explained: “Some people say hilarious things you wouldn't believe. You would be shocked by these things. I always say when you're allowed to laugh, you should, because laughing is okay as well.

“I think we want humanity, and just listen to everything they're saying, because something tiny and silly for us, to them is the biggest thing they're dealing with that day. So don't minimise the situation.”

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While call handlers usually deal with the public, it is up to the radio dispatcher to manage incidents in their sector, prioritise attendance, allocate officers, coordinate response teams and update logs.

I sat down with Haylee Blinco, a radio dispatcher, who “joins the police to the person”.

She’s been in the force for seven years and praised her team. She said: “We all bounce off each other, you have to work as a team because you can’t do it all yourself. You have to trust the people you work with. We’re like a really close-knit family.”

For Haylee, it was a childhood dream for her to be working in the control room.

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“You can’t say that you don’t take it home with you. I will be dealing with a job, and I will be thinking about how it’s ended. I don’t ever know the outcome. I don’t sit there and worry about it, but I wonder about how it finished.

“You just hope everyone’s okay.”

Before staff are allowed to answer calls on their own, they go through several rounds of training.

Haylee explained: “I did eight weeks training in a classroom, before coming to the control room. I was a chef before I started here, with no experience in policing at all. I had to learn the basics of law. Then you come up here and you get given a mentor who you sit with for the next nine months.”

Haylee is now training her third mentee, but not everyone is cut out for the role. She said: “We find in this job that you either can do it or you can’t. If you find out that you can’t, it’s not because you are incapable, it’s just that you cannot do it, it’s one of those jobs. Some people can’t handle the pressure and the importance of it.”

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She added: “I remember sitting at the dinner table when I was a kid, and I remember saying I want to be the person that answers the 999 call. I used to be obsessed with the show ‘999’ with Michael Buerk. Then I went into cheffing.

“It took me 30 years, but I eventually ended up doing the job that I told my mum when I was six years old that I wanted to do.”

If you’re interested in being a call handler or a radio agent, you can click here to find Bedfordshire Police’s control room careers.

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