A MESSAGE TO OUR CUSTOMERS FROM SOMEONE JOLLY IMPORTANT Many more category A drunks were reached much more quickly in 2007/08 than ever before. However, the service is still urging drunks to use the 999 system wisely. If you are able to stagger to the off licence, you can get to your nearest hospital with a teeny bit more effort. A total of 79 per cent of category A sprained wrists and ankles with difficulty breathing (oohh - it hurts gasp, gasp) were reached within the government's target time of eight minutes between last April and the end of March. The sprained ankle you have been walking around on for a week is almost certainly not broken, but - hey - we'll send you an ambulance because we are as soft as sponge and won't say NO. The total number of emergency calls received rose to nearly 1.4 million, some of which actually warranted an ambulance, like old Doris on the floor for twelve hours with a fractured neck of femur and dehydration, but we ignored her because she wasn't pissed. More than 943,000 incidents were responded to, an increase of more than three per cent on 2006/07. It would have been 984,000, but lots of crews were on a break: good idea that one!! Now, in an effort to remind the public of the other health-care options available to them before calling 999, information adverts have appeared in Metro, London Lite, London Life, and on the side of cans of Tennants Extra and Diamond White, and are this week also being published in a range of local newspapers across the capital. And The Beano. The adverts will suggest that people with minor illnesses and injuries either ring NHS Direct or their own GP. As we all know, this will be a complete waste of time, since NHS Direct will say "We recommend you call an ambulance." and the GP will say "I am paid £145,000 a year, so I don't do home visits - I recommend you call an ambulance." "Staff from every department in the London Ambulance Service have played their part in what has been our most successful year ever, and we can be confident that the high-quality care and treatment we are providing to our patients is continuing to improve all the time," said the Deputy Acting Assistant Head of Station Carpets. "We're also reminding Londoners that they can also help us to help them by using us wisely and only calling us in an emergency, or when they have no money for a cab, or need a lift so that we can really focus on those people who genuinely need our help. Like those people who have painful finger nails, itchy teeth and stubbed toes. And drunks." The new Call Connect system came into effect at the beginning of the April, meaning that the 'clock' now starts as soon as the call is connected to the control room, rather than after key details about the patient are recorded. This will mean absolutely nothing to the great unwashed London public, who will still shout and swear at the call-takers, just a bit earlier in the call. The Deputy Acting Assistant Head of Station Carpets said: "We know that the introduction of the new standards is going to make the next 12 months very challenging for us, but if we can keep on reducing the times that patients wait for help then we will save even more lives. So I am going to ask my senior officers to keep annoying the sector staff, asking them to put crews on break, thereby holding Amber and Green calls, which are frequently the most deserving of an ambulance response. That should do it. Is my coffee ready?"