North Wales Police is the fastest force in the UK to answer emergency calls, according to a study.

Research conducted by accident compensation experts claims.co.uk analysed the latest available data from police.co.uk to determine how long police forces take to answer emergency phone calls. 

The study calculated the weighted average time it took for each constabulary to answer calls over the past year; the forces were then ranked.

With an average time of 36.10 seconds over the past year, Bedfordshire Police statistically took the longest amount of time to answer emergency calls. 

However at the other end of the scale, with a weighted average of just 7.78 seconds taken to answer an emergency call, North Wales Police had the quickest emergency call answer time. 

According to the data, the force received 107,099 emergency calls over the course of the last year.

Only 845 of those calls took 60 seconds or longer to answer.

The figure that means North Wales Police is the only force in the UK where less than 1 per cent of calls take more than a minute's wait to be answered.

A claims.co.uk spokesman said: “Thousands of emergency calls are made each year. 

"This research offers a fascinating insight into how quickly every UK police department answers those calls. 

"Even the constabularies with the slowest emergency answer times tend to answer calls as quickly as possible, which only bodes well for the people they promise to serve and protect.”