07/10/2026
About 35 to 40% of the calls received on an emergency-only line are not emergencies.
That can be surprising. But the reality is that the word "emergency" means something different to everybody. What one person shrugs off, another is genuinely frightened by. Both of them are ringing the same number at 9pm.
So the skill is working out, quickly, what is urgent and what can wait until the morning, without ever making the caller feel they were wrong to ring.
Each customer's own procedures guide the process, with calls triaged against a detailed knowledge base. Is the leak going near electrics, or is it containable? Is it getting worse? Is anyone vulnerable in the home?
And when it isn't an emergency, the caller is still given an explanation, the issue is logged with a case number, and it is passed to the main office the next morning. Nothing gets lost.
Getting that judgement right, hundreds of times a night, is one of the hardest things a call handler does.
That judgement is a key part of what an out of hours partner provides.
Find out more about how this works: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0yLstl0
