Ambulances in Moray and Aberdeenshire: Hoax 999 calls in NHS Grampian and Scotland
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AMBULANCE crews in the NHS Grampian area have had to deal with 14 hoax emergency calls so far this year.
As a result hard-pressed crews wasted over 390 hours in Moray and Aberdeenshire, spending an average of nearly 28 minutes responding to each call.
The figures for the north east come against a backdrop of a rising number of malicious 999 requests across the whole of Scotland.
Between January and August, the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) received a total of 219 false calls.
One caller even to have been stabbed, only for the crew to arrive and find no sign of any patient.
Michael Dickson, the SAS chief executive, said: "Anyone who calls 999 without a genuine need is putting lives at risk by diverting crews that could be needed to respond to a life-threatening incident.
"We work with the police to report malicious, or nuisance callers and encourage the public to help us. Hoax calls are no joke."
