The number of hoax calls made to East of England Ambulance Service Trust (EEAST) has soared by 48 per cent in the last three years, a new investigation has revealed.
Fresh figures obtained by Medical Negligence Assist have found that ambulance crews in the region have wasted hours responding to more than 660 hoax calls to the service since 2021, with figures for 2024 reaching a three-year-high.
What’s more, during that time ambulance crews made a total of 42 face-to-face responses to calls that turned out to be time-wasting hoaxes.
East of England Ambulance Service provides emergency services to people in need of urgent medical treatment and transport across Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire.
In 2021, the service received 160 hoax calls, 15 of which were responded to by crews face-to-face, wasting a total of 13 hours of the service’s valuable time.
The following year, 141 calls were made, seven of which resulted in an in-person response from EEAST crews.
In 2023, a further 123 hoax calls were received by the ambulance services, 14 of which were responded to face-to-face.
This last year, 2024, the service confirmed it has had 237 hoax calls – an increase of 48 per cent compared with 2021.
Between January and December 2024, the total time spent responding to each hoax call amounted to a whopping 22 hours and 28 minutes, with an average task time of 14 minutes, according to EEAST.
Speaking on the issue in October, Darren Farmer, Director of Ambulance Operations for London Ambulance Service, said:
“Hoax calls to 999 are a criminal offence because they threaten lives. Every hoax call we attend takes valuable resources away from genuine emergencies and can delay ambulances reaching patients with a life-threatening illness or injury.
“We work with the police to prosecute where possible as this behaviour is completely unacceptable, and callers can face imprisonment or a fine.
“If a caller repeatedly impacts our ability to answer calls we can stop them from connecting to emergency services for 8 hours. However, we have to treat every 999 call as genuine until we can rule it out.”
Delays in ambulance responses can potentially cost lives and if you’ve suffered harm as a result of a delay, you could claim compensation.
Medical Negligence Assist provides free advice on these types of cases. They operate a free 24-hour helpline and live chat which you can access on their website.
FACT FILE
This data and research was gathered by Medical Negligence Assist via FOI requests to NHS Ambulance Services.
