Nearly 1,400 hoax calls have been made to the Scottish Ambulance Service since 2019, the Scottish Conservatives can reveal today.
A response to a Freedom of Information Request by Maurice Golden MSP has uncovered that an “appalling” 1,368 hoax calls have been recorded by the SAS in recent years, with over 300 occurring this year alone.
Under-pressure ambulance crews attended 1,136 of the incidents between 2019 and this year to date, which turned out to be false alarms, with over 767 hours of ambulance service time wasted on dealing with them.
Maurice Golden says that the prank callers are “risking lives” with their behaviour, as resources are diverted away from genuine people in need.
He has called for the “selfish individuals” to be “severely punished” when caught and says it is the last thing hardworking frontline ambulance crews need to be dealing with.
Scottish Conservative MSP Maurice Golden said: “The number of hoax calls being received by our overstretched ambulance crews is appalling.
“Over 300 have already been recorded this year alone, in what is clearly a deeply concerning trend. This is the last thing ambulance staff need to be dealing with at a time when the SNP have failed to give them the resources they need to attend genuine emergencies in a timely manner.
“While pranksters may think these calls are a joke, nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is they are putting lives at risk with their reckless behaviour.
“These selfish individuals should be severely punished when they are caught. They have diverted resources – which are already scarce thanks to the SNP’s lack of action – away from real incidents.
“That could be the difference between life and death for some if crucial time is wasted on travelling to respond to incidents that turn out to be a total hoax.”