Appreciate your ambulance service. This is the one New Year’s resolution the ambulance service would like you to keep not just for 2016, but for life. You don’t need an ambulance if you’ve lost your keys. A scary hedgehog doesn’t equate to a medical emergency. If you need a lift home after a night out in the pub, call a taxi not 999. As part of a week-long awareness campaign, WMAS will be releasing audio clips from 999 calls to highlight the shocking examples of inappropriate calls. In addition, they’ll be tweeting live from one of the Trust’s control rooms later in the week to spend a day with a 999 call assessor.
Jeremy Brown, West Midlands Ambulance Service’s General Manager responsible for Emergency Operations Centres, said: “My control room staff are currently dealing with around 3,000 999 calls a day. Despite us being an ‘emergency service’, it’s truly shocking what people consider to be appropriate to call 999 for.
“We’re here for genuine life-threatening emergencies such as chest pains, cardiac arrests and difficulties breathing. The audio will be released via our ‘officialwmas’ accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube."
