Emergency services in Shropshire say their 999 phone lines are under "high demand" - and have urged members of the public to report non-emergency crime online.

Calls to the 999 service are answered first by BT operators and then passed to the emergency service the caller requests. Demand on the service has been increasing in recent months with the easing of lockdown restrictions across the UK.

A statement from West Mercia Police issued today(August 8) said: "We are experiencing a high call demand for 101 and 999, please only use 999 in a genuine emergency.

"If your report is not urgent, you can report incidents of crime and non crime on line, visit westmercia.police.uk"

Last month, West Mercia saw its phone system crash under the increased volume of calls.

Meanwhile West Midlands Ambulance Service experienced a total of 40,839 emergency calls during the last week of July, which they say was their busiest week ever.

Professor Anthony Marsh, chief executive of West Midlands Ambulance Service, told an annual general meeting that extra funding for call handlers and staff should see an improvement in their capacity.

"The emergency departments are under enormous pressure, despite the best efforts of all in our emergency departments and everyone working flat out on 111, 999, primary care and our emergency departments," he said.

"We will be working to ensure we have sufficient capacity to answer and respond to 999 calls through more call handlers, more staff, more paramedics and more ambulance crews."

"I absolutely recognise and share the frustrations of our frontline staff as they are having to spend a disproportionate amount of time responding to calls and waiting to help people."