A great idea.......but we are forgetting one very important point. It is very difficult to triage someone over the phone...particularly if you are talking to a friend who is p***ed. At some stage, although a rare occurance, at sometime, someone is going to make the wrong decision about not sending anm ambulance. Now I can understand this being a very rare occurance and of course measures wikll be put in place to try to ensure it doesn't happen, however, think of the poor call taker who it does happen to. They will be instantly backed up by the usual management decision of being suspended pending an investigation and then the service in question will spend the remaining time trying to protect itself from legal redress. The poor call taker will invariably be disciplined/sacked/demoted or whatever the service decides in order to be seen to be "taking appropriatte action" Once the 999 call is made then everyone who deals with the call/patient is acutley aware of "covering their arse" no matter how trivial the call sounds.