Met takes two minutes to answer 999 call

The revelation - which will raise serious concerns about public safety - comes in figures obtained by the Evening Standard covering a one-week official survey of how calls are handled.

It shows that during one week last month, 40 callers ringing 999 were kept waiting for more than a minute - including one where the delay was a full two minutes. At the same time, the latest annual statistics show that the Met is failing to meet the official time limit for answering emergency calls in nearly one out of five cases.

The disclosures, which mean that thousands of Londoners each year are being kept waiting too long after ringing 999, will prompt fears that the delays could be putting members of the public at risk. Critics point out that in many cases - such as where the caller is reporting a burglar inside a home or where a violent attack is taking place - a delay of even a few seconds could lead to serious injury or worse.

The new figures are drawn from an internal Met "snapshot survey" covering the first week of July when police received a total of 45,000 calls. It found that although just over 90 per cent of calls were answered within the official 10 second deadline, one caller was waiting for two minutes. A further 39 callers waited between 60 and 120 seconds, while another 178 waited for between 30 and 60 seconds before receiving a response. Although no details of each case are known, Metropolitan Police Authority member Jenny Jones said she was alarmed by the delays.

She said: "It is quite frightening to think that if someone has a burglar in their home they might have to wait for up to two minutes before their 999 call is answered. This is obviously not good enough."

The latest annual figures, covering the 12 months to the end of March, show that the Met answered 86.6 per cent of 999 calls within the 10 second limit.

Officials said that reasons for delays include sudden surges in call volume, including when large numbers of people ring on mobiles to report the same incident. Another problem can be the relatively large number of calls which do not require 999 assistance.

Met Commander Simon Bray said that despite the high number of 999 calls - around 2.5 million a year - the force was improving. He said: "Whilst we are constantly looking at ways to reduce the amount of time it takes to answer these calls we have already seen significant improvements. "