Wiltshire Police cuts 101 call answer time
The force said call wait times did spike to 37 seconds in June - traditionally seen as one of the busiest times of the year.It subsequently launched an improvement plan to help improve the numbers, conducting quality assurance audits and recruiting new staff.It has also tracked the overall experience of staff in the contact centre and has retained a higher number of operators, boosting the number of experienced staff.
'Hard graft'
There have also been improvements to the amount of time it takes to answer 999 calls, the force added. Each month, the call centre receives around 10,000 calls to the non-emergency number, alongside 8,000 calls to 999 for immediate assistance.Ch Insp Allen Lumley, part of the command team, said: "We want to make sure that we provide a sustained focus on putting the caller at the heart of what we do -staying empathetic to each and every caller."It has taken a long time to turn around our performance because of the time it takes to embed these things and start to bear the fruit of our hard graft."We will continue to work hard to enhance our performance and solidify the efforts made this far."
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Times
an hour ago
- Times
His voice was taken by disease. Now he delivers justice through a synthesizer
A syrupy American voice congratulates members of the jury for being selected to serve in Dundee sheriff court. The inflection is almost celebratory, as though the line-up has secured new jobs or passed an exam. Although the words were supplied by Sheriff Alastair Carmichael, who has overseen proceedings in the city for 12 years, the voice was produced by Microsoft. 'You'll already have noticed that this is another synthetic voice that's speaking my words,' Carmichael's laptop tells the courtroom. Motor neurone disease (MND), which affects the nerve cells connecting muscles and the brain, has eroded his ability to enunciate words himself. The illness began with a 'numb, spongy feeling' inside his mouth in the autumn of 2023, then progressed to a lisp. Carmichael can still talk but the range of sounds demanded by the English language are no longer feasible. The letter 'C', he tells me, is particularly difficult. When I struggle to understand, as we chat during a morning in his chambers, he jots in a notebook or taps a phrase into his phone and shows me the screen. Bizarrely, during two holidays to France, he found French easier to enunciate. Of his diagnosis, he types: 'I'm not bitter about it. It is one of life's mysteries. You can only control what you can control.' Still agile, he moves nimbly around his book-lined room, providing refreshments and showing how he uses different digital devices. Carmichael's form of MND has only affected him from the throat up, a condition known as progressive bulbar palsy. His wife Helen, sons and courtroom colleagues who converse with him daily are much quicker at understanding his words than me. In order to do his job Carmichael uses a range of text-to-speech software and each programme has its quirks. One of 127 sheriffs in Scotland, Carmichael is thought to be the only judge in the UK, and possibly the world, presiding over cases using synthesised speech. 'Carrying on doing this gives me a purpose and enables me to be a full part of society by contributing,' he says. Carmichael recorded his own voice before he lost the power of speech. He had to read 300 sentences to create the necessary voice bank with SpeakUnique. As a result, his phone and PC can read his typed words in a tone his friends recognise. A phone app speeds up the process using text templates for common scenarios, such as shopping. Crucially for his work, the system is customisable and Carmichael has spent hours inputting the kind of phrases he is most likely to need in court. The MND team within NHS Tayside helped support this with a computer system called Grid 3. Press the tab for 'traffic offence' and it reads: 'On charge one you will be disqualified from driving for X months, reduced from X months because a plea of guilty means that a trial was not required.' Carmichael only needs to fill in the appropriate numbers in the courtroom on the day. He can also type during proceedings — he finds two fingers the fastest approach — swiftly granting two warrants for arrest on the morning I visit. He deploys the same technology for taking oaths. Translators, for example, have to promise to faithfully interpret during proceedings. Once, Carmichael says, he accidentally pressed the wrong key on his device. Instead of asking the interpreter to swear solemnly and sincerely he said: 'There is no alternative to a custodial sentence.' 'You have to retain a sense of humour,' he says with a smile. Carmichael comes from a family of engineers but took a different path because his maths was 'hopeless'. Before moving north he served as a High Court prosecutor in Edinburgh for seven years. Now living nearer to his wife's extended family, who farm, he says he does not miss life in the central belt. In 2023 he sentenced Tracie Currie and Carl O'Brien for targeting Humza Yousaf, then the first minister, with racist abuse. Last November he sentenced the Earl of Dundee, Alexander Scrymgeour, for drink driving. When hearings go to trial, the systems that use his synthetic voice cannot rise to the occasion, unable to handle text longer than three sides of A4. Carmichael calls his words for a trial on to the screen. With all his directions to jurors, it runs to page 18. For this to be heard he relies on Microsoft Word, which cannot use his voice and instead provides its own. This is why his opening remarks to the jury are delivered in an American drawl. 'I cannot get rid of it,' he says. He can select the gender of the speaker and the system offers English narrators known as Hazel and George, but Carmichael says he cannot always control who shows up to the courtroom. He demonstrates a section of text delivered in a more soothing lilt, known as 'smooth' George, although Carmichael is not sure why this virtual character takes over his monologue at this point. 'Sometimes it is a complete surprise to me which voice comes to the microphone,' he says. There are pros and cons to this technological uncertainty. Carmichael emphasises the importance of the jury trusting him, but he also sees the possibility of a sudden shift in voice keeping the 15 men and women engaged. 'My laptop becomes a point of interest, who knows which voice might pop up next,' he writes. The Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service is working on a solution that will allow his own synthesised tones to be used more extensively. Carmichael has handed out hundreds of criminal sentences using voice technology and since the system was launched for jury trials last November, after a period of testing, he has adjudicated in a dozen jury trials. There have been no complaints thus far. People, he notes, are well accustomed to technology. It is the jar filled with slips of paper for picking jurors' names I find anachronistic, not his laptop on the bench. 'The important thing is [that] as long as the words are my words, an objection will not succeed,' he explains. 'For example, if I was using artificial intelligence that would be a bad thing, but I am not. I'm always making sure it is what I want to say before I say it.' The harder it has become to speak, the less self-conscious he has felt about relying on all the other options, he says, writing down 'self-conscious' because it is hard to mouth. 'I think you cannot really understand unless you have experienced something similar,' he continues. 'It is also quite humbling. I am in a new situation where I am more reliant on other people making allowances and adjusting what they do in order to accommodate me.' He says the hardest thing to deal with in court is when a witness is prevaricating or behaving offensively. 'Then you have to type things, but I cannot nuance. You have to just say, 'Answer the question'.' If someone becomes upset on the stand, he always uses his recorded voice to help them calm down, as it 'sounds more empathetic'. Carmichael does ponder how important one's voice is to personality. Aspects of communication he misses include pausing when he would like, making eye contact and gesturing as he talks, which feel absent. The emphasis of repetition in normal speech patterns is also gone. But he has learned to add extra commas to create a more natural sound and misspell some words so they are pronounced correctly. 'The systems don't like Scottish, or dialect words, and many of them get a verbal mangling unless I misspell them,' he explains. The Aberdeenshire village of Strachan is one example, which will be pronounced with a soft 'ch' in the middle unless he writes 'Stracken'. Spontaneity, Carmichael says, is what he misses the most. 'I think of something I want to say but by the time I have put it in my phone or written it down, the conversation has moved on.' Sometimes in meetings he raises his hand to indicate he has a contribution. Backed by his boss, Sheriff Principal Gillian Wade, his approach to each challenge is to simply crack on. MND, though incurable, affects patients so differently that his prognosis is unknown. He feels well. He is aiming to reduce his 'very average' golf handicap before he is 'physically unable' to play. For now, he can eat everything he wants, although it 'takes a lot of time' and a cough or sneeze 'is like a car wash'. While losing the ability to swallow is a worry, he has determined not to let fear dominate. 'I am not going to waste time and energy being miserable,' he says.
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Can't stick to exercise? Your personality may be to blame – the best workouts for 5 key types
EXERCISE that suits your personality type could help you stick to it, a study suggests. Doing something that doesn't match your personality, however, could see you fall off the wagon much quicker. 1 In research, scientists often use the Big 5 personality types. They are: Conscientiousness: This describes someone who is responsible, careful, and goal- and detail-oriented. They have high impulse control and tend to be organised Agreeableness: This describes a person who is respectful, compassionate, trusting and tries to avoid problems. They tend to be more cooperative and are helpful Neuroticism: This describes someone who gravitates toward unsettling emotions, such as anxiety and depression. They get upset easily Openness: This describes a person who is open to new experiences and curious about the world. They are creative and happy to talk about abstract ideas Extraversion or Extroversion: This describes someone who seeks excitement and is active and highly sociable. They are talkative, have a lot of emotional expressiveness and are energised around others University College London (UCL) recruited 132 volunteers, of which 86 people finished the study. They were put on an exercise programme for eight weeks in which they did three weekly cycles of varying intensity, and one bodyweight strength workout. Participants' benchmark fitness levels and stress were assessed at the beginning of the programme. During the exercise programme, participants were asked to rate their enjoyment of each exercise session, before having their fitness level tested again once the programme had been completed. Researchers found extroverts tended to enjoy high intensity workouts - i.e short bursts of activity with short rests between, usually over a shorter workout. Those with strong neuroticism, which measures emotional stability and the tendency for anxiety or mood swings, preferred bursts of activity rather than prolonged intensity. They also preferred not being monitored or recording their heart rate, which suggests they prefer to exercise alone or with independence. Professor Paul Burgess, an author of the study from the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said: 'We found that people who scored more highly in the neuroticism personality trait showed a particularly strong reduction in stress when they undertook the fitness training recommended in the study. "This suggests that there may be particular benefits in stress reduction for those with this trait.' Conscientious people tend to have a well-rounded fitness level - scoring higher on tests. They didn't have more enjoyment for any form of exercise, which the researchers suggested meant that they are driven by the positive health outcomes, rather than enjoyment of exercise. They may have stuck to the programme because it was 'good for them'. People who were high in the agreeableness trait enjoyed the easy long rides in the exercise programme and openness predicted less enjoyment of HIIT rides and threshold rides (moderate intensity over a long period). But these effects were not strong. Dr Flaminia Ronca, of UCL's surgery and interventional science and the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health (ISEH), said: 'We know that the global population is becoming increasingly sedentary. 'You often hear about people trying to become more active, but struggling to make lasting changes. 'We found some clear links between personality traits and the type of exercise the participants enjoyed most, which I think is important because we could potentially use this knowledge to tailor physical activity recommendations to the individual.' In the paper, published in Frontiers in Psychology, the researchers concluded that the most important thing people can do to improve their activity levels is to find something that they enjoy, which will make it more likely that they'll stick with it. How much exercise should you do and when? There are guidelines issued by the NHS and the Government regarding how much exercise people should do each day. People should be active daily, and avoid sitting for long periods. The NHS recommends an adults – those aged 19 to 64 – should aim for 150 minutes of 'moderate intensity activity' a week. This works out to 21 minutes a day, or 30 minutes five days a week. Or, they could do 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week, which could be less than 11 minutes per day or 25 minutes three days a week. Adults should also aim to do strength exercises twice a week, at least. Examples of moderate-intensity activities include brisk walking, water aerobics, riding a bike, dancing, doubles tennis, pushing a lawn mower, hiking or rollerblading. Examples of vigorous activities include running, swimming, riding a bike fast or on hills, walking up the stairs, sports, like football, rugby, netball and hockey, skipping, aerobics, gymnastics or martial arts. Things like lifting heavy weights, sprinting up hills, spin classes or circuit training are considered very vigorous. What time should you exercise? Getting exercise into your day, no matter what time is a good idea. But you may want to be more selective depending on your goal. A 2023 US study on 5,285 middle-aged adults showed exercising between 7 and 9 am was the best time if you're looking to lose weight. Researchers found that early-bird gym goers had a lower body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference than those working out later. A 2022 study led by Prof Paul J Arciero, Skidmore College, New York, found that the optimal time of day to get your kit on might differ according to your gender. Prof Arciero said women wanting to lose fat around their belly and hips would do better to hit the gym in the morning, but those seeking to gain upper body strength or simply improve their mood might see more results from evening exercise. The results were the opposite for men. If you struggle to get to sleep, it's been found that exercise in the morning may help, but exercise in the evening may help you to stay asleep. Exercise, generally, can improve sleep quality.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
What your favourite exercise tells you about your personality - and it's bad news for those who enjoy HIIT
Whether we're at home, outdoors or in the gym, many of us dread certain forms of exercise while looking forward to others. Now, a new study reveals that this could all be down to our personality type. In experiments, scientists at the University College London assessed the temperaments of more than 100 people and their preferred type of exercise. They found high-intensity interval training (HIIT) – which combines quick bursts of intense exercise combined with short recovery periods – is typically favoured by shameless extroverts who love to be seen. Meanwhile, those who prefer short exercise sessions conducted alone are likely neurotic – meaning they're prone to negative or obsessive thoughts. According to the researchers, tailoring our exercise routines to our personality can help us stick to our regimes and ultimately get fit. 'You often hear about people trying to become more active, but struggling to make lasting changes,' said first author Dr Flaminia Ronca at University College London. 'We found that our personality can influence how we engage with exercise, and particularly which forms of exercise we enjoy the most.' For the study, Dr Ronca and colleagues recruited 132 volunteers from the general public with a range of fitness levels and backgrounds. Participants were assigned to either an eight-week home-based cycling and strength training course or a 'resting' control group who continued with their usual lifestyle. Throughout the experiments, participants had their fitness and stress levels assessed and completed a questionnaire on how much they'd enjoyed training sessions. To assess personality, participants were tested for levels of the 'big five' traits – openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. The 'big five' personality traits are the best accepted and most commonly used model of personality in academic psychology. Unsurprisingly, participants who completed the fitness course got fitter and stronger regardless of how the scored on the personality test. But crucially, the researchers found several connections between personality traits and enjoyment of certain forms of exercise. For example, extroverts tended to particularly enjoy high intensity exercise, such as high intensity interval training (HIIT) and a fitness test of maximum intensity cycling. What is high intensity interval training (HIIT)? High intensity interval training (HIIT) involves short bursts of intense exercise alternated with recovery periods. It can be done both aerobically (demanding oxygen intake, such as brisk walking) or anaerobically (such as weightlifting). HIIT has claimed a spot in the top 10 fitness trends since 2014 as surveyed by the American College of Sports Medicine. Meanwhile, conscientiousness was linked with aerobic exercise (repetitive activity that uses oxygen and increases your heart rate, such as brisk walking) and core strength exercises (which strengthen the core muscles). Conscientious people were also found to be generally more physically active, the team said, but are likely driven by the health-related outcomes of engaging in physical activity rather than enjoyment. And people who scored highly on neuroticism – a personality trait associated with worrying and anxiety – preferred short bursts of activity rather than a prolonged effort. Neurotic individuals also preferred private workouts and not being monitored, such as not having their heart rate recorded, while they were undertaking the programme. This finding suggests that neurotic individuals appreciate being given space for independence and privacy when engaging in exercise. Interestingly, the only group to experience a significant reduction in stress levels after exercising were those who scored highly for neuroticism. This suggests exercise is particularly effective at reducing stress for neurotic people, but less so for people with other personality traits. The researchers also found those scoring high on openness – characterised by creativity, curiosity, and willingness to learn – rated strenuous exercise as less enjoyable than other activities. The study found several correlations between exercise type and personality traits, including extroverts' enjoyment of high intensity exercise While not all personality traits had a link to exercise enjoyment, the new study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, can help people opt for types of exercise that fit their personalities. This tactic could make working out feel more enjoyable, which might mean we stick to it for longer and ultimately get healthier. 'Our brains are wired in different ways, which drives our behaviours and how we interact with our environment,' said Dr Ronca. 'So it's not surprising that personality would also influence how we respond to different intensities of exercise. 'We could potentially use this knowledge to tailor physical activity recommendations to the individual – and hopefully help them to become and remain more active.'
