A new study has found that Devon & Cornwall Police are among the forces taking the longest amount of time to answer emergency calls.

Research conducted by accident compensation experts claims.co.uk analysed the latest available data to determine how long police forces across the country take to answer emergency phone calls.

The study calculated the weighted average time it took for each constabulary to answer calls over the past year and the forces were then ranked.

Devon & Cornwall was ranked fourth slowest to answer emergency calls after 272,789 calls were analysed with an average answer time of 24.90 seconds. In addition, 12.51% of these calls took the department 60 seconds or longer to answer.

The slowest to answer emergency calls was Bedfordshire Police with an average time of 36.10 seconds from 122,922 calls.

On the other side of the scale, with a weighted average of just 7.78 seconds taken to answer an emergency call, North Wales Police have the quickest emergency call answer time.

A representative from claims.co.uk commented on the findings: "Thousands of emergency calls are made each year. This research offers a fascinating insight into how quickly every UK police department answers those calls.

"Even the constabularies with the slowest emergency answer times tend to answer calls as quickly as possible, which only bodes well for the people they promise to serve and protect."