A new Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed that between August 2023 and September 2024, there were 35 hoax calls made from Ealing to the London Ambulance Service which saw paramedics being called out.
Across London as a whole, 764 hoax call outs were attended to by the service which was revealed to Medical Negligence Assist who made the FOI request.
Neighbouring boroughs recorded less hoax calls than Ealing. Hillingdon saw 29 hoax calls, Brent had 27, Hounslow had 25 and Hammersmith & Fulham had 20 while Harrow recorded 17. The highest number of hoax calls in London was Newham with 116 call outs while the lowest was in the City of London with two call outs.
In total for the year, 764 hoax call outs were made which resulted in 909 hours of wasted time, the highest in recent years. In 2021/22 there were 466 incidents that turned out to be time-wasting hoaxes and wasted 511 hours while in 2022/3 it was 606 incidents wasting 677 hours.
In a statement made last October on people making hoax calls, 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.”
Mr Farmer added: “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 eight hours. However, we have to treat every 999 call as genuine until we can rule it out.”
 request has revealed that between August 2023 and September 2024, there were 35 hoax calls made to the London Ambulance Service which saw paramedics being called out.){kind=link}