7,000 hoax calls to ambulance staff

Sep 9 2012

More than 7,000 hoax calls have been made to the Scottish Ambulance Service in the last three years, a freedom of information request has revealed.

The findings of the request, submitted by the Scottish Liberal Democrats, showed that a total of 7,057 hoax calls had been made to the service since 2009.

Nearly half of the calls (3,000) resulted in the use of ambulance resources, while 2,678 were attended by staff.

The party's health spokeswoman Alison McInnes branded the calls "wasteful and thoughtless", and called on the Scottish Government to launch a campaign to highlight the impact hoax calls can have on emergency services.

The MSP said: "7,000 hoax calls in three years are no joke for Scotland's emergency services.

"Each and every hoax call must be answered by an emergency dispatch centre. It's an extraordinary waste of our emergency services time and resources.

"At a time when NHS resources are already stretched to the limits, many people will be disappointed to learn that each year the Scottish Ambulance Service has to attend nearly a thousand hoax call-outs (per year). It's unacceptable.

"Malicious hoax calls are irresponsible and dangerous as they can divert resources from genuine emergencies. It is all of our responsibility to make it clear to society that putting people's lives at risk is no joke.

"The Scottish Government must also tackle this by launching a broad public awareness campaign.

"From talks at schools to posters in the pub we need to see a strong message which makes clear that hoax calls are dangerous, wasteful and thoughtless."