FIRE brigade that plans to send a van to a house blaze. A police force whose response to crime calls was judged poor by nearly half of those questioned in a survey. Out-of-hours doctors going into administration.

And now an ambulance service which will ask some 999 diallers to transport themselves to hospital. All that's missing is for the coastguard to ask deckchair attendants to provide lunch-hour cover.

Our emergency services are going through a painful transition. Once we relied on them to respond to every call flat out and fully equipped. Now they attempt to judge 999 calls on merit.

It is largely our fault. We expect too much from the emergency services, a fact manifested by the time-wasters who dial 999 to report a poorly cat.

To ease the pressure of mounting calls, soon Tees, East and North Yorkshire Ambulance Service (TENYAS) will not despatch an ambulance to every 999 caller. Those with minor injuries will instead be transferred to medically-trained telephone advisers.

This places enormous pressure both on the operator who must decide either to send an ambulance or put them through to the medical call centre, and on the experts who must make a diagnosis over the phone line.

John Yates of the York Older Peoples' Assembly is right to be concerned. A mistake could be disastrous. We urge TENYAS to ensure this experiment is monitored continuously and, if found wanting, amended immediately.

Updated: 10:37 Tuesday, February 15, 2005