WEST Mercia Police is dealing with a system outage in its control room, with 999 calls being answered by neighbouring forces.

A police spokesperson urged the public to only dial 999 in a genuine emergency, and report all non-urgent matters online via its website.

The force, which covers Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire, said it was working hard to fix the problem.

"We are currently dealing with a system outage in our control room," they said.

"999 calls made within our force area are being picked up by neighbouring forces.

"We are working hard to resolve this issue. In the meantime we are urging the public to only dial 999 in a genuine emergency and to report all non-emergencies online."

"Thank you for your patience and understanding."