Case Study: Greater Manchester Police achieves faster, secure crisis response and improved staff coordination with BlackBerry AtHoc

The Critical Importance of Effective Communication in Coordinating a Police Response

Greater Manchester Police (GMP), one of the UK’s largest forces with 11,000 staff, faced escalating civil unrest and the sudden disruption of the COVID‑19 pandemic. Leadership needed faster, more secure ways to coordinate officers, account for personnel, and conduct wellness checks as many support staff moved to remote work.

GMP deployed BlackBerry AtHoc and BBM Enterprise—purchasing 11,000 AtHoc licenses—to automate two‑way alerts, daily pandemic briefings, and secure field messaging. The platform sped response times in drills, enabled targeted wellness checks, saw nearly half of off‑duty firearms officers respond within 10 minutes during recalls, helped quickly locate a missing person via secure image sharing, and streamlined resource coordination with plans to extend use to flood response and inter‑agency communications.

Greater Manchester Police

Chris Sykes

Assistant Chivef Constable