Nuisance caller rang London Ambulance Service 3,600 times over 12 months

The prolific problem-caller dialled 999 the equivalent of 69 times a week over 12 months
Getty Images

A nuisance caller rang the London Ambulance Service almost 10 times a day for a year.

The individual is most prolific problem-caller to the NHS, having dialled 999 the equivalent of 69 times a week over 12 months.

The caller, who has not been identified, asked for an ambulance 3,594 times from November 2016 to October last year.

Frequent callers, who ring the emergency services at least five times a month, cost the NHS almost £19 million a year, according to the BBC.

A total of 8,303 emergency calls were made by the five most frequent callers across the UK. One made 1,044 calls to South West Ambulance Service and another made 1,244 calls to East Midlands Ambulance Service.

Paul Jefferies, assistant director of operations at South Central Ambulance Service, said 10 per cent of calls are from frequent callers.

He said: “If the ambulance, or the response vehicle, is being deployed to that patient who we know is a frequent caller, it means that a resource might not be available for a potential cardiac arrest.”

An NHS spokesman said the calls were often related to mental health, chronic pain and alcohol or drug dependence.

The figures were released after a Freedom of Information request to the UK’s 14 ambulance trusts.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in