999 emergency hotline down: BT says sorry for technical faults across country

BT has apologised for technical glitches that caused 999 emergency calls to fail on Sunday morning. The telecommunications company, which manages the 999 phone system, said the issues were resolved that evening after having been down from 8.30am.

Emergency services across the country were impacted by the system failures which prevented 999 calls from connecting. BT subsequently switched to a “back-up system” at around 10am, however, issues persisted as some services reported a delay in calls being received.

A BT spokesperson said: “We are sincerely sorry for the distress this has caused. There was a short period of time as we switched over to the back-up system during which calls could not get through.

“In this instance, we are still able to see who is trying to reach the operator, and our handlers reconnect calls as a matter of urgency. Our back up platform took calls throughout most of Sunday, with people able to call 999 as usual.

“The primary 999 service was restored earlier this evening (Sunday) and we are no longer relying on the back-up system. We are monitoring the service, and we continue to work hard to determine the root cause and the impact this has had.”

The Government said they are conducting a full investigation into the problem. A spokesperson said: “There was a technical issue with the 999 call system earlier today (Sunday, June 26).

“This is now fully resolved and the service is running as normal, and so anyone with an emergency should call 999 for assistance in the normal way. A full investigation is under way to understand what caused this problem.”