A nationwide network outage on Vodafone has caused major issues for the country's non-emergency police and NHS phone lines.

Vodafone has acknowledged the issues on its network, which has affecting UK customers since early this afternoon, however, it is not yet known when it will be resolved.

But while customers have experienced issues with making and receiving calls and accessing the internet, the outage has caused problems with police and NHS non-emergency numbers.

Police forces in Scotland and England say the non-emergency 101 number is currently not working, and say it is a national issue.

READ MORE: Vodafone down: UK customers cannot make calls and left without phone connection after network outage

They say that under no circumstances should people who wish to use the 101 service call the emergency 999 number instead.

According to website DownDetector, almost 3000 issues have been reported by customers in the UK.

The service appears to be down across much of the UK with Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham and London particularly affected.

The provider is currently replying to customers on Twitter, and say they are aware of the issue.

They wrote: "We are currently aware of the issue and are working hard to get this fixed.

"Sorry for any inconvenience this has caused, we hope to have this sorted as quickly as possible."

How can you contact police if 101 is down?

Since the non-emergency 101 number is down, many are wondering the best way to contact their police force.

In an emergency, you should always contact 999.

However, if it does not fall under that category, there are other ways to get in touch.

Many local forces have online reporting services, which can be found on their respective websites.

In Scotland, this can be found here.