North West Ambulance Service have warned of the dangers of hoax calls for an ambulance during the pandemic.

There have been 90 hoax calls made across the county in the last 12 months.

Last month alone saw 15 hoax calls made to the emergency services, a jump of six compared to February and up from two in March 2020

North West Ambulance Service recorded 758 ambulance calls that turned out to be false in the same period from March 2020 to March 2021.

Hoax calls rose by a third in the first month of the coronavirus pandemic to 94 hoax calls across the north west alone.

Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group figures also suggest there was perhaps a serial single offender in October 2020, with a sharp increase to 20 time-wasting calls.

While Cheshire is not the highest for hoax calls of the five counties North West Ambulance Service covers, numbers are still high despite the pandemic.

However, the figures also include more than just calls where pranksters call for a joke.

The numbers also include calls where ambulance staff turn up and there is no-one there.

This is often because the patient has undertaken the journey to hospital themselves and have just forgotten to cancel, they have decided they no longer need an ambulance

North West Ambulance Service's Cheshire and Merseyside, Head of Service, Roger Jones said: "Making a 999 call for anything other than a life-threatening or serious emergency puts lives at risk.

"Any call that is not a medical emergency takes up valuable time and resources which can prevent or delay our ambulance crews getting to those who are in the most urgent need of our help.

"The trust receives a relatively low number of hoax calls compared to the number of calls for real incidents but what may seem like a laugh and a joke can have extremely serious consequences.

"Those who do think this is funny should imagine if an ambulance couldn't respond to their own relative in crisis, caused by someone, or themselves making a prank call.

"This is why it's really important to respect the 999 service and only use it when really needed.

"If you do call for an ambulance and then decide you no longer require it, please do let us know, we can then send that crew to someone who needs our help."

People should only use 999 in a medical emergency, and opt to use the non-emergency number (111) where appropriate.

The data was sourced by a Freedom of Information request by Nub News.