Hoax calls to ambulance services imcrease by a third

The number of hoax calls made to North West Ambulance Service Trust (NWAS) has soared by 32 per cent in the last three years, a new investigation has revealed.

Figures obtained by Medical Negligence Assist have found that ambulance crews in the region have wasted a staggering 3,000 hours responding to thousands of hoax calls since 2021, with figures for 2024 reaching a three-year-high.

What’s more, during that time ambulance crews made a total of 1,212 face-to-face responses to calls that turned out to be time-wasting hoaxes.

North West Ambulance Service provides emergency services to people in need of urgent medical treatment and transport across Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire and Glossop. 

Between April 6, 2021 and April 5, 2022, the service received 700 hoax calls, as well as 363 incidents that were responded to by crews face-to-face, wasting a total of 963 hours of the service’s valuable time. 

The following year, 833 calls were made and a further 406 resulted in an in-person response from NWAS crews. The total time spent responding to the hoax calls was 1,109 hours.

In 2023/24, the service received 925 hox calls and responded face-to-face to another 443 incidents, wasting a total of 1,1028 hours and 36 minutes. 

So far between April 5, 2024 and September 2024, another 398 hoax calls have been made to the service as well as 196 more incidents where crews responded in-person, with 384 hours wasted in total. 

In the last three years, the service has spent more than 3,000 hours responding to hoax or malicious calls - the equivalent of over 125 days. 

Last week in the Tameside Reporter, it was revealed that youngsters in Tameside making hoax 999 calls in the run-up to Christmas were putting lives at risk.