The Metropolitan Police has confirmed that its emergency call handling system has been fully restored after a temporary outage last night left the force unable to receive 999 and 101 calls.

The issue, which began at approximately 9:36pm on Tuesday, 25 March, affected the Met’s ability to receive emergency and non-emergency calls. According to officials, phone lines were operational again within the hour, with full service restored shortly after midnight at around 12:05am on Wednesday.

During the outage, the force activated its contingency protocols, rerouting emergency calls to neighbouring police forces to ensure public safety was maintained.

A Met Police spokesperson said:

“Our well-rehearsed contingency plans were immediately activated and many calls were directed to neighbouring forces during the affected period.

We have since resumed to a normal service and are working with our service provider to understand the cause of the failure.”

While core phone lines were restored by 10:28pm, further issues persisted with internal systems for a short time before full functionality returned.

The Metropolitan Police uses a Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system for managing calls and dispatching officers, which is currently in the process of being replaced. The incident has raised fresh questions about the reliability of ageing infrastructure and the urgency of planned upgrades.

No incidents were reported to have been missed during the outage, thanks to the rapid response of neighbouring forces and the Met’s internal teams.

The force has assured Londoners that the emergency services are now operating normally, and investigations are ongoing to identify the root cause of the disruption.

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