‘Education, education, education’ so said Tony Blair in the famous mantra at the Labour Party Conference in 1996, just months before being elected to power.
And while I may have fallen out with the party over many things since that time, education is one thing I still passionately believe in, even if the Government don’t.
But I also think education needs to extend beyond the classroom, it should be part of our everyday lives, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It doesn’t matter what form it takes, but we should be striving to improve ourselves all the time.
And education needs to extend to those who what are stupid phone calls to the 999 service. People need to be educated in what we are there for.
This kind of education needs to start as a child and continue throughout life, people need to be reminded that we are not a big white taxi service because they feel a little peeky, that you cannot verbally abuse call takers who are just trying to find out what the problem is in order to help the crew, that it is wrong to verbally and physically abuse ambulance crews who are there to help and that hoax calls are just not funny (of which we had 12 last night alone!) and can be dangerous.
More action also needs to be taken by the police when people make hoax and inapprioate calls, and not just when the calls are made to them, but when ourselves and the fire service also put in complaints against people. Publicity needs to follow that we will no tolerate misuse of the service and it all needs to be backed up with education on what justifies a 999 call.
Perhaps then we might start making headway and I might not get emergency calls from a man in a pub wanting a new pair of crutches!
