The ECHO (Electronic Call Handling Operations) scheme for automating intruder alarm calls for police response is ‘is an absolute game changer’, Ken Meanwell, the Compliance Manager at Police Crime Prevention Initiatives, told a packed audience at the 2023 Secured by Design (SBD) ATLAS national training conference and exhibition.
Ken, pictured, provides the secretariat for the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) Security Systems Group and works with security certification and trade bodies on technical standards and codes of practice. The NPCC is working with the alarms industry towards having alarm activations from compliant systems passed electronically, from alarm receiving centres (ARCs) into police control rooms, digitally via ECHO.
Ken said: “ECHO is an absolute game changer, revolutionising the way we deal with alarm calls and improving response times. No matter how big or how small your force is, you will benefit from ECHO. Automation is the way forward, we are always looking to improve on response times, and ECHO achieves this by ensuring a response in seconds as opposed to minutes, as well as freeing up call handlers to deal with the essential work that they do in respect of 999 and 101 calls.”
ECHO alarm transfer is being rolled out to police forces as a fully automated electronic alarm transmission service between ECHO-connected ARCs and the police, eliminating communication errors and delays associated with manual telephone call handling, to provide a quicker police response.
ECHO delivers time savings where ‘every second counts’ as blue light services respond to emergencies. Alarm signalling to the police via the ECHO hub replaces manual handling of alarm calls (by voice calls) between the ARC and police control rooms. This can save on average up to three minutes in response times by the police.
The Metropolitan and Essex forces were the first to be ECHO-connected in 2021, and Avon & Somerset, Northumbria, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, the City of London, Kent, Hertfordshire and Greater Manchester constabularies have followed. Merseyside and Hampshire are in test mode.
With over 300,000 alarm installations now ECHO-connected and supported by ECHO, tangible benefits are already being delivered, say police, including improved alarm response times and more effective deployment of police.
Visit www.echo.uk.net.
