Leicestershire Police is among the top forces in the country for call response times, but said it will keep working to improve them.

UK police forces aim to pick up at least 90 per cent of calls in 10 seconds, according to Police UK.

However, in October, just one force managed to hit that target, data collected by Police UK reveals. That was Gwent Police, which responded to 90.6 per cent of calls within the 10 seconds.

In November, the country's police did better, with eight forces hitting the target time. In December, the most recent data released by Police UK, 13 forces were successful

Leicestershire Police has improved its own results over each of those three months. It managed to answer 86.4 per cent of calls within 10 seconds in October – 15,942 of the 18,460 calls taken.

This put it 11th out of UK forces for response times for the month.

In November, it just missed the target at 89.9 per cent – 15,065 of 16,750 calls, putting it ninth of all forces. However, in December, it managed to exceed the 10-second goal with 92.3 per cent of calls answered on time – 15,560 out of 16,851 calls. It came in fifth of all forces for that month.

Chief Inspector Adam Wardle, from the force's Contact Management Department, praised contact handlers for doing "an amazing job" to help the people of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, while "remaining calm and focused". He added the force will continue to work hard to improve its response times.

He said: "As an emergency service Leicestershire Police is dedicated to providing a high standard of service to the people of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

"The force Control Room is always the first point of contact for people calling the police in both emergency and non-emergency situations.

"We receive hundreds of calls every day and it is vital that these calls are answered as quickly as possible to ensure the appropriate help can be provided. It is therefore positive to see that our call response time is high. Our contact handlers do an amazing job in answering these calls while making instant decisions to help someone in need and to get the information required for officers attending the scene, all while remaining calm and focussed.

"People can report matters online and we would encourage the public to use this online function if the contact is not an emergency or requires an immediate response. This enables our call takers to be in a better position to take emergency contact quickly and enable to most appropriate response.

"As a team, we will continue to work to improve our call response time while ensuring every call is handled in a sensitive and effective manner."