Last year, SOS Alarm received more calls to 112 than ever before. Despite that, they managed to reduce response times.
– We have a better ability to handle it now, says Douglas Norström, press officer at SOS Alarm.
In 2023, a total of 4.1 million calls came in to 112. Almost 3.7 million of them were answered – which is 11 percent more than the year before. These are new record quotations, according to SOS Alarm’s own compilation.
– These are historic levels. We see that it is connected to a changed behavior during the pandemic that has remained. The threshold seems to have dropped today for what is considered an emergency situation, says press officer Douglas Norström.
At the same time, calls are also increasing where the caller is judged to need help.
– We have become more people in Sweden. And then there is a concern in society. There is gang crime and war near our borders, notes Douglas Norström.
“We are the hub”
Despite the increased pressure, SOS Alarm’s response times decreased by 57 percent last year. This after a few years of increasingly long telephone queues. At the end of the year, they were below the national target of a response time of 8 seconds, and for the whole year the average was 10.9 seconds.
Several reasons contributed to the improvement, according to Norström. On the one hand, the crisis that arose during the pandemic is over, and on the other hand, SOS Alarm recruited 350 new employees last year. New technical solutions have also been introduced.
– We are the hub in Blue Light Sweden, so everything that applies to us has also applied to ambulance medical care, rescue services and the police. The whole chain has been able to be sped up, says Norström.
“Being a problem”
About half a million of all incoming calls were about pure error calls – such as misprints on phones and smart watches or cars that falsely alarmed by itself.
– We solve that relatively easily. More problematic is when people call about “my cat meowing strangely” or “my washing machine is broken”. We have to deal with such calls in order to dismiss them.
About a third of the calls last year were judged not to need any help.
– Our operators only know if it is serious or not when they have answered the call. Because everyone ends up in the same queue, there will be problems, says Douglas Norström.
Fact: You should call here
(TT)
112
In urgent emergency situations where there is danger to life, property or the environment.
114 14
Police numbers for cases that are not ongoing or recent crimes and incidents. Open Twentyfour Seven.
113 13
For information about major accidents and crises or general questions about, for example, the coronavirus.
1177
If you or a relative have fallen ill and need to consult a nurse
Source: SOS Alarm