The short answer
In most of the UK, the police only attend an intruder alarm automatically if it is a monitored system with a police unique reference number (URN), installed and maintained by a company certified by an independent inspectorate, and the alarm is confirmed — by more than one detector, by audio, or by CCTV. A bell-only alarm, or one that only calls the owner, will not normally bring the police unless someone reports a crime in progress.
What a police URN is
A URN is the reference that puts your alarm on the local force’s list of systems it will respond to. To get one, the system generally has to be installed and maintained by a company certified by an inspectorate such as the NSI or SSAIB, and signalled to a monitoring centre that meets the relevant standards. The installer applies on your behalf; there is usually a fee.
Why confirmation matters
Most alarm activations are not crimes: a draught moves a banner, a spider walks across a sensor, a cleaner forgets the code. Police forces will not send officers to every one of them, so they ask for alarms to be confirmed before they respond — two separate detectors triggering in sequence, sound from the site, or a camera showing an intruder. A confirmed alarm is treated very differently from a single unexplained signal.
False alarms can lose you police response
Forces track false alarms against each URN. A system that keeps calling them out for nothing can have its response downgraded and, eventually, withdrawn — and getting it reinstated takes time and a clean record. That is one of the strongest reasons to have every activation assessed by an operator first: a monitoring centre that filters out the spider and the cleaner protects your police response for the night it really matters.
What covers the gap
Even with a URN, the police attend crimes, not alarms. Somebody still has to go to the site, find out what set it off, secure a broken door and reset the system. That is what keyholding and alarm response is for: a response officer with your keys attends in place of your own staff, and calls the police with first-hand information if there is something for them to deal with.
What we do when your alarm goes off
Every activation that reaches our control centre is assessed by an operator before anyone is called out. If it is confirmed, the arrangements agreed for your site start — a call to the police where the site is eligible, our own response team, your keyholders, in the order you chose. If it is nothing, it is logged and you are not woken up. What happens when an alarm goes off sets out every step.
Talk it through with us
Every site is different. Tell us about yours and we will tell you plainly what we would do.