More than a thousand 999 calls from one address

MORE than 1,100 emergency 999 calls were made from just one Birmingham home in the space of a year, shock figures have revealed.

An ambulance was sent to the unidentified address 489 times – and a patient was taken to hospital on only 75 occasions, at a cost of around £250 a time.

The figure was the highest in the West Midlands for the year from November 1, 2016.

An address in Wolverhampton made a total of 942 calls over the same period, resulting in an ambulance being sent 748 times and a patient being transported on 46 occasions.

The service also took 453 calls from a Tipton address, with a patient taken by ambulance to hospital on 28 occasions.

Elsewhere in the Black Country, another Wolverhampton address called ambulance assistance 284 times, and a Dudley address 272.

Information released by West Midlands Ambulance Service showed a total of more than 4,300 calls were made from just ten addresses across the region over the 12-month period.

The Wolverhampton Liberal Democrats group, which asked for the figures, said the most persistent callers were costing NHS around £30,000 a year each by making calls where an ambulance was not needed.

Lib Dem spokesman Ian Jenkins said: “These figures are mind-boggling.

“It’s often because callers don’t have access to other services at this time and use the ambulance service as a ‘last resort’.

“We need to create action plans for these people to make sure they get the tailored care they need.

“With the NHS at crisis point, I do worry that frequent callers make it harder for the ambulance service to reach others with more serious or potentially life-threatening conditions.”