When you say...
"if the caller is insistent they can't refuse to send an ambulance for even the most minor of cases"

Please, please, please tell me you're joking.
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Wed 9 Sep 2009, 16:16, 2 replies)

Sadly...
...the service I work for has a policy (dictated by our wise state government) that states if a caller is insistent that an ambulance must attend, then so be it.
The public pay a compulsory levy for ambulance cover (used to be voluntary subscription) and there's an attitude with some people that we are a fucking mobile drugstore to home deliver band-aids.

Nothing worse than be tied up on some petty bullshit case when a real emergency goes off.
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Wed 9 Sep 2009, 16:24, closed)

People should be sent invoices for that kind of bullshit
Kind of like when you press the emergency button on an escalator, where apparently you get a £500 fine... Is that even true? I don't have the balls to find out..
( whenanimalsattackhumans clad in global hypercolour, Wed 9 Sep 2009, 16:37, closed)

To clarify...
...the call takers do try and educate people that they are perhaps misusing the service and the only one of my examples that got an ambulance dispatched was the leg cramp - in case it was a DVT (deep vein thrombosis). It wasn't.

Unless the call is an actual hoax - as opposed to an idiotic call - then no, there is no fine that can be issued.
We still give the callers a hard time though if we attend a bullshit case.
My partner loves telling them that they need "10mg of Toughen The Fuck Up."
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Wed 9 Sep 2009, 16:47, closed)

you used to pay
Around 20 years ago a friend of mine had to pay £50 for an ambulance after he was sent flying over a car at a set of lights, breaking his leg in the process.

He was on a motorbike at the time, riding through the junction at 30 MPH, squeezing the lemons. The fact that it was his fault may have contributed to his having to pay. Oh, that and the fact that he is/was a cock.
(mersault, Wed 9 Sep 2009, 16:50, closed)

Not too -
different a story, my folks were in a semi serious bump in the car, they drove into the back of a slow moving lorry - this must have been 12 years ago, they were invoiced for the ambulance services!
(feedingtimeatthezoo day 1 of his bikini diet started, Wed 9 Sep 2009, 17:00, closed)

In Oz...
...or at least in Queensland, the bill for a non-Queensland resident is around AU$1000.
If you need an ambulance here whilst on vacation, just give a Queensland address (make it up) and tell them you have lived there for more than three months = no bill.
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Wed 9 Sep 2009, 17:05, closed)

In New South Wales (Australia)
The bill for an ambulance is approx $80/km.

Ambulance insurance is about $20/annum and means you ride for free. If you don't have it, you pay.
(misskitty reeks of sex and turpentine; laudanum afternoons, Thu 10 Sep 2009, 4:08, closed)

Not even slightly.
Check out www.neenaw.co.uk for a dispatcher's eye view of the world.

Also recommended - randomreality.blogware.com/blog for an EMT's eye view (ambulance driver, that is)
( Fronds are waving gently on, Wed 9 Sep 2009, 17:13, closed)