Dial 999 If You Can't Cope With Life

When the last chairman of the London Ambulance Service left earlier this year he gave an exit interview in our internal newsletter, he said, "We are not an emergency service any more, we are a problem solving service".

Which is kind of the root of our problem.

For my last four night shifts I'd spent my time going to people who really didn't need an ambulance. They fell into one (or more) of a number of categories.

The 'I want treatment now'.

This group of people really have no idea what an...