North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) has turned to Grimms’ age-old fairy tales in a bid to educate children on when they should call 999.

Stories such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty and Hansel and Gretel have been given a modern twist in a new book which is available to primary school children across the region.

The concept comes after the trust revealed that over one million 999 calls were made to them in 2019, but over a third of these were for non-emergency situations, with callers ringing for incidents such as slips and falls, minor stomach pains and back ache.

The ambulance service is now trying to educate young children on which scenarios are considered to be an emergency in a bid to reduce the number of non-emergency callers and help people understand where else they can get help.

The book, Happily Ever After, sees classic characters in scenarios that require emergency attention, whereas characters such as Sleeping Beauty deal with less serious incidents by dialling 111.

Ged Blezard, Director of Operations at NWAS, said: “There is clearly a need to educate the public on what constitutes an emergency situation, and by educating children early on, we hope to provide them with the knowledge they need to act responsibly and with due care should they ever find themselves in an emergency.”

Download the book online for free, www.nwas.nhs.uk/fairytales.