WHEN a family member or a loved one goes missing, it is clearly one of the worst experiences imaginable.

Often feeling helpless and sick with worry, relatives and friends rely on the expertise of the emergency services who have the resources to help track the missing person down. More often than not, thankfully, the missing person is found and returned to their families safe and well.

Across Essex, up to 25 people go missing every day, with teams of emergency response officers on high-alert to scour the streets to trace them.

About three of those people go missing from Basildon, often including vulnerable adults and children, who are likely to be a danger to themselves or the public.

Across south Essex, there are regularly five or six missing people each day, and those figures have reached to as many as 13 in one day.

So far this year, there have been 2,549 reports of missing people in Essex, relating to 1,518 individuals.

According to the force’s statistics, there are 334 people who regularly go missing, which includes children under the age of 18.

Chief Insp Sam Smith, district commander for Basildon, said that officers from local policing teams spend thousands of hours each month searching for missing people.

In June, officers across south Essex spent 12, 380 hours - equating to 1,922 days - making enquiries and searching the streets.

As well as missing people enquiries, the officers are also tasked to deal with emergencies and 999 calls

Mrs Smith now intends to launch a new specialised team, made up of one sergeant and five PCs, to free up officers to spend more time responding to emergency calls.

She said: “I am going to use my non-operational officers to become an enquiries team, making use of those who can’t deal with conflict or who are unable to carry out front-line policing for some reason at that time and use that resource.

“That will free up my operational officers to spent more dealing with response and similar demand.

“The team will be looking at who is missing each day and looking at longer-term solutions, which will tie in with partner agencies.

“The team I will be setting up will be for Basildon, but I know that they are looking at a similar idea in Southend, Castle Point and Rochford.

“It is a recognition that we can better deploy our resources. Once the officer becomes fully operational, they will be released from the team.”

One missing person that officers are keen to trace is Patricia Finnie, 64, who was last seen on Thursday, May 11 - more than two months ago.

Mrs Finnie, who is from Southend, had been to see a friend in Riviera Drive and left there sometime between 12.45pm and 1.15pm.

There have not been any reported sightings of her in recent weeks.

Patricia is 5ft 6ins tall, of medium build, with straight auburn hair. She also sometimes wears glasses. Anyone who has any information regarding her whereabouts is asked to contact Southend police station on 101.