Emergency reponse times will not be affected by shift changes, Trafford's police chief confirms (From Messenger Newspapers)

Emergency reponse times will not be affected by shift changes, Trafford's police chief confirms

12:30pm Thursday 19th January 2012 in News

TRAFFORD’S police chief has assured the public that changes to where officers sign on for shifts will not impact emergency response times.

By the end of this month, all officers will start their shifts in Stretford station before being deployed across the borough for duty.

Currently, Altrincham station is also used to carry out briefings at the start of shifts.

Chief Superintendent Mark Roberts, for Trafford Division, said: “When officers sign on to their shifts at Stretford, there will be sufficient coverage across the borough at those times to deal with any incidents or emergency calls. There will never be a time when there is no cover.

“This comes after we varied the times that our officers start their shifts.”

The borough’s 999 calls used to be taken centrally at Chester House, in Old Trafford, and then dispatched accordingly.

But as of Wednesday (yesterday), Claytonbrook operational control room took over dealing with the calls.

Police call handling uses a ‘graded response’ system, which matches the public’s demands for police services with the resouces available at a given time Grade one calls are the most urgent and must be responded to within 10 minutes, while grade two calls must be answered within one hour and grade three calls in a four-hour time frame.

In Trafford, from January 1 to January 12, all 184 grade one calls were answered in the required time. Ninety per cent of 470 grade two calls were responded to within the hour and 88 per cent of the 451 grade three calls within four hours.