Trivial calls 'put lives at risk'

Lives are being put at risk by Londoners who phone for an ambulance in "trivial" nonemergency situations, it is claimed today.

Researchers at Cranfield University unearthed an alarming increase in the number of 999 calls made by people who cannot get through to their GP.

However, more worrying examples include a woman who demanded an ambulance to take her drunken friend home because she "couldn't get a cab" and a wife who complained her husband "wouldn't listen" to her. Emergency calls such as these - all recorded this winter - have reached such levels that London Ambulance Service (LAS) is launching a campaign to tell the public: Stop Using Ambulances As Free Taxis.

Londoners are three times more likely to phone for an ambulance when suffering from flu than people living elsewhere in Britain.

Peter Bradley, chief executive of LAS, said: "When ambulances are prevented from dealing with genuine emergencies, it follows that lives could be put at risk."