South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) and South Central Strategic Health Authority have created a viral campaign with Rocket Science, part of Twofour Group, to show how misusing 999 costs lives. The project, which aims to help tackle hoax calling and inappropriate use of the ambulance service, revolves around a YouTube video, supported by an online [...]

Over 10,000 calls have been made to North Derbyshire’s new non-emergency NHS 111 number since it went live two months ago.

A campaign to stop bogus and inappropriate calls to the region’s ambulance service is launched today. Frustrated bosses and crews at South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) want to stamp out abuse of the 999 system which saw them receive 1,235 hoax calls last year. They were also faced with a deluge of absurd requests including [...]

Emergency services are warning revellers not to make unnecessary 999 calls as they gear up for the chaotic new year period – like people complaining of a sore head after boozing. West Midlands Ambulance Service has revealed it receives a number of calls from people complaining of being hungover during their busiest two days of [...]

A teenager from Cambridgeshire has been warned she faces a possible jail term after making 756 silent 999 calls over the Christmas weekend. Kerry Ann Moate, 18, of Samuel Jones Crescent, Little Paxton, was arrested at home after police traced her phone. Huntingdon Magistrates’ Court heard Moate dialled the emergency services repeatedly between Christmas Eve [...]

What were you doing on Christmas Eve? If you were wrapping presents in front of the fire, having drinks with friends or stuffing yourself with mince pies, spare a thought for the people working in A&E over the festive season. You’d think that Christmas would be a time to spare a thought over whether or [...]

Ambulance bosses are condemning a man who rang 999 to say he had run out of toilet paper. The call was released by South West Ambulance in an attempt to make people realise pranks and hoaxes can stop genuine calls from getting through. A spokesman said it treated all 999 calls as potentially life-threatening. “Our [...]

A caller dialled 999 — after one of their toenails fell off. Other crazy emergency calls in the run-up to Christmas included someone who wanted paramedics to carry their drunk friend to bed and a parent whose child was having a tantrum. One person rang 999 after their relationship ended and another wanted a urine sample [...]

Latest figures show the Welsh Ambulance service received just more than 31,000 emergency calls in October – up 6.9% on September and up by 4% compared with October 2010. via WalesOnline.

A TROUBLESOME contact lens and a case of toothache are two recent examples of people inappropriately dialling 999, according to Yorkshire Ambulance Service. As emergency services and hospitals brace themselves for a significant increase in 999 calls over Christmas and New Year, ambulance bosses have urged people with minor illnesses and injuries to consider more [...]