Just read NeeNaw's post and the comments with it. I completely understand why it must be so frustrating to get that kind of job, when you *know* it's not an emergency, and the immediate instinct is to punish people who do that. But where do you draw the line? I called an ambulance out a couple of months ago as I was having chest pains. Turned out to be muscular, not heart-related, but I didn't know that at the time. So would I have been classed as a time-waster??? I'm not getting on a soap-box here, just wondering out loud...

Did you lie about or grossly exaggerate your symptoms? - no

Did you follow first-aid procedure and apply relevant self-help or seek the appropriate level of medical assistance? - I'd imagine so, I distinctly remember being told at all the various first-aid courses I've done that if someone has chest pains and there's no obvious cause (eg someone just hit them in the ribs) you should be on the safe side and call 999. If you'd checked the NHS website it would have told you to call 999. If you'd phoned your doctors' surgery they probably would have told you to call 999. With chest pains they don't really take chances.

So that's not exactly wasting time.

Batsgirl is right - Chest pain can be something serious, even if it isn't it's an easy job for us...

What I found most interesting was the various ways in which time-wasters - which it appears this person knowingly was - get followed up by Scottish and other governments.

A scared person with indigestion to my mind rates more sympathy than a person with a sore toe who KNOWINGLY flags it up as a life-endangering sitch - that's surely the essence of that call and the whole story.